Just a warning... This isn't a "click by click" tutorial. I won't tell you every button that you should click on to get to the function that's needed. Sometimes I won't tell you to click "OK" to exit a dialog, but if I show you the "model view" next, please assume that I exited the previous dialog with an affirmative (I will tell you when I click "cancel").
Open the Round Duct Takeoff.rfa family from the content folder (I'll leave it up to you to figure out where your content is installed).
Save the family with a new name (so that you don't accidentally mess up the Round Duct Takeoff), I'm going to use the creative "Spud.rfa" name for mine.
Open the Family Types dialog and change the Insulation Thickness and Lining Thickness parameters to 2" each and click OK.
(This is just so that you can see the geometry in the family to make sure that you are working with the parts that you want to work with).
Now that we can see the different part of geometry in the model, we can get rid of the lining geometry (since lining won't work very well for piping). There is some strange joined geometry in the tap family, so make sure that you get both pieces of the geometry and simply delete it from the family (it may be easier to change the display to wireframe to make sure you have all of the geometry selected, but I'm not telling you how to change the display to wireframe).
Since we've gotten rid of the lining geometry, we can also get rid of the lining parameter that exists for this fitting. To do that we'll go back into the Family Types dialog, select the Lining Thickness parameter and click Remove (we don't need that parameter any more).
The connectors that are in this family are currently duct connectors, and duct connectors aren't going to work well for piping, so we need to replace them with pipe connectors. Before we do that however, we need to "play" with the geometry a bit. The "tubular" geometry that you see in this family actually consists of two different pieces of geometry (2 different sweeps). We need to unjoin this geometry so that we will be able to place a connector on it after we delete our duct connectors. To do this start the Unjoin Geometry Tool and then pick the front of the "inner" tube.
Now that we have our geometry "broken up" we can delete our duct connectors. To do this just select both of the connectors and hit Delete.
Now we can add some connectors back, but this time they will be Pipe connectors, rather than duct connectors. Click on the Pipe Connector tool and then select the "inside" surface as shown below.
Click again to add a connector to the front part of the Geometry.
Once you've added both of the connectors, the family should look something like the image below.
Now the connectors obviously aren't correct yet, as they are way bigger than the geometry that they are placed on. Select both of the connectors and go to Properties.
The first thing that we want to change in the connector properties is the System Type on the connectors. When I added the connectors the system type defaulted to Hydronic Supply. We can change the system type to Fitting, since this is a fitting.
By changing the System Type to fitting, that cuts way down on the number of connector properties that we need to deal with. The only one that we need to pay attention to now is the Radius property. If we look closely we'll see that there is a button at the right side of the dialog that allows us to "map" the connector property to one of the family properties.
When we click on this button, we will see the Associate Family Parameter dialog. In this dialog select the Radius parameter and click OK.
Click OK to exit the Properties dialog as well.
We should see that the connectors are now the same size as the geometry that they are placed on.
We need to put the geometry back like it was before we started, so start the Join Geometry tool and select the two "inner" tubular sections.
Now we need to go to Family Category and Parameters and change the category. Since we started with a duct fitting, the category is Duct Fittings. We can change it from Duct Fitting to Pipe Fittings. When you change the category of an element you should always check the Family parameters dialog to make sure that the settings are appropriate. In this case we need to change the Part Type to Spud - Adjustable.
Finally, let's change the insulation thickness parameter back to 0" in Family Types. Save your family and you're basically done. (If you want to actually use the family you'll probably want to create a new pipe type in a project, load this family into the project, set the Spud type to the family that you just created and change the "Preferred Junction Type" from Tee to Tap).
If you are really lazy, you can get a file created from the method above
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