FeaturePro feature

Plan cable trays and conduits, sized by the cables they carry

Strucit lets you draw cable trays and conduits on the floor plan, snaps your cables onto them, sizes each conduit from the cables it carries, and lists every bracket, conduit body and clamp the installation needs.

A conduit selected on a floor plan: the stretch carrying 20 cables is marked red, and the menu warns that a conduit takes up to 17 and offers to change that part to a cable tray.

How it works

Pick Tray / conduit in the Build tools and choose Cable tray or Conduit. For a conduit, choose how it turns its bends: through a conduit body, or a curve piece.
Click along the route to place its points, then press Enter to finish. Points snap onto cables already drawn, so a run laid over existing cables follows them exactly.
Draw the cables along it. With the cable tool, a click near a tray or conduit snaps onto it and the cable follows the run until you leave it.
Select a conduit to see the size it needs. Where more than 17 cables pass, that stretch turns red; Change to a tray where needed cuts the conduit there and makes that part a tray.
Generate the report for the materials.

After the change: a tray from the switch to the first branch, and the rest still a conduit, whose menu shows a 1” size for 16 cables.

What the report lists

Each run with its length, measured and with 30% added, as cable lengths are.
Conduit sizes per part of each conduit: 1/2” up to 6 cables, 3/4” up to 11, 1” up to 17, with the metres of each.
Tray brackets: one every 1.70 m, plus one at each end.
Conduit bodies: every 6 m of straight run, at each bend, on both sides of a wall the conduit crosses, and where one conduit ends on another.
Clamps: one every 0.80 m, with the count at 0.50 m for stretches in the sun.
Totals per kind, with the metres of conduit of each size.
Power points: an outlet for each device not powered over Ethernet. Switches, server racks, PCs and notebooks always get one.

Every count comes with its 30% suggestion next to it, so the list is ready for a quote with spare parts included.

The text report: a tray with its brackets, a conduit split into 3/4” and 1” parts, and the totals per size, each with its estimate plus 30%.

Free and Pro

Trays and conduits are Pro, in the text report and in the PDF report. The power points list is in the free text report too.

What it doesn’t do

The fill table is for Cat5/Cat5e cable. Thicker cable (Cat6A, fibre, power) fills a conduit sooner; size those yourself.
The spacings (1.70 m, 6 m, 0.80 m) are fixed for now.
Sun exposure and open-air crossings are notes in the report, not something you mark on the plan.
A cable is not tied to the run it follows: moving a tray later leaves the cables where they are.
PoE is read from the device’s specs text, and a PoE switch’s power budget is not checked.

Frequently asked questions

How does Strucit pick the conduit size?

From the cables drawn along each part of the conduit, counting a cable drawn as x4 as four: up to 6 Cat5/Cat5e cables is a 1/2" conduit, up to 11 a 3/4", up to 17 a 1". Past 17 that stretch is marked red and should be a cable tray.

Does one tray count once, however many cables run through it?

Yes. A tray or conduit is its own line on the plan: its length and fittings are counted once, while every cable in it is still measured and listed on its own.

Which fittings are in the report?

For a tray, a wall-mounting bracket every 1.70 m plus one at each end. For a conduit, a clamp every 0.80 m, conduit bodies every 6 m of straight run, at bends, on both sides of a wall it crosses and where conduits meet, and curve pieces when you choose curves for the bends. Each count comes with an estimate with 30% added.

Is it free?

Drawing trays and conduits is a Pro feature. The power points list (an outlet for each device not powered over Ethernet) is in the free text report.