CADgneto

AutoCAD Electrical Title Block Link

In AutoCAD Electrical we have the power to update title block of a drawing or project with a click of a button. Unfortunately some setting must be done for all this to be possible, but we do it once and that’s it, unless more then one title block is used. Below represent the different setting that are possible in our “Title Block Link Method”. Before I explain to you what the method are I must let you know the file that controls the title block update has the extension WDT. In this WDT file, which can be read and edited as a text file in notepad, it contains the block attribute and what are they link to in ACADe.

This “Title Block Link Method”, found in the drop down menu “Projects” under the name of “Title Block Setup”, shows us 2 methods. Method 2 is actually an attribute inside of your title block containing your links, which for me I found harder to control and editing on the fly, also your attribute name must be named WD_TB. Method 1, which I use religiously and find it easier to control, offers us 3 options.

Option 1, this option is project specific, in other word you need to have a WDT file with the same name as your project i.e. Project = DEMO.wdp, Title Block Link = DEMO.wdt.

Option 2, this option is kind of project specific also, the only difference, you have a WDT file named default.wdt in the project folder. If you have more then one project in a folder, they would all share the same default unless you created a specific project WDT.

Option 3, this option is more Title Block specific, what do I mean by that? If your company uses the same title block over and over, with little changes over the year, this is the option for you. You would name a default.dwt file in your support folder of ACADe. That way if the title block update doesn’t find a project.wdt, or a default.dwt in the project folder, then it would look in the “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Acade 2006\Support”. Instead of having different DWT per project, which you are using the same title block over and over, then option 3 is your best bet.

In the “Title Block Link Method”, if you choose to use Method 1, the one that you have selected doesn’t really matter, why? Because ACADe searches for all of them but in the order of, project.dwt, then default.dwt in project folder, followed by default.dwt in the support folder and if none of these are found, it will go to method 2 which is the WD_TB attribute.

I hope this is useful information for you to start setting up your company WDT standard, but also this work for your WDL extension.

Good luck with you Title Block Update,

CADgneto

Creating a Circuit in ACADe

In AutoCAD Electrical you can create component by using the Black Box Builder, but when it come to creating a circuit, we can definitely say the Black Box Builder doesn’t help. They’re some tools that our offered by ACADe, Copy Circuit, Move Circuit, Save Circuit to Icon Menu, Insert Saved Circuit and Insert WBlocked Circuit. My goal is to show you the concept on how to create a circuit with out the tools.

To begin, let’s start with a new drawing on the acad.dwt standard. Think of the Coordinate 0,0 (X,Y), as your insertion point. In your new drawing you will design your circuit, with the proper wire layer and component. Once the circuit created, make sure that your insertion point of your circuit is moved to the 0,0 coordinate. Then save your drawing file (DWG) to your hard drive. Now you have 2 locations possible that will make your life easier, you can save it in the user folder of AutoCAD Electrical or in the symbol folder that contains all the other component of ACADe. I’m offering you these 2 folders because the support file search path are already setup by ACADe, but you can put it anywhere as long you add you folder support search path (Drop down menu, Tools, Options… or type OP in command line). When you save this file the name convention does not come into consideration, You can name it what ever you want but to keep my circuit organize I always start with Circuit_*.dwg, that way I know that my DWG is a circuit and not a component.

Once all of these steps are done, you are ready to bring your new circuit in your drawing. I will show you in another post later on how to insert, the circuit, in the component menu with the Icon wizard, but for now let’s concentrate on inserting our circuit in our drawing. Use the command Insert WBlocked Circuit from the drop down menu of ACADe, Components, or you can also use the Icon too. Once selected browse to your circuit and select open.

A Circuit Scale window wills pop-up and all you need is to fill in the requirement needed to you circuit. Once all your requirements are selected, click OK and now all you need is to insert it in the desired location. As you can see you 0,0 in your original drawing is now your insertion point.

Why must we use the Insert WBlocked Circuit over the component insert? If you select insert component you are inserting a Block filled with other block inside. So Electrical will not be able to read those inside component individually. When you use the Insert WBlocked Circuit, you are actually inserting the circuit as an exploded block. That is why you can edit the component individually.

Enjoy your circuitry,

CADgneto

Wires colour setting for ACADe

By default ACADe makes every wire in a drawing on a layer called “WIRES”. Now more layers can be added to the wire list in “Drawing Configuration and Defaults”, as you can see below. Now the first one in the layer list will always be the default for your wire command, and if you put one of the wild card first, it will select the first one in your layer properties manager. Another scenario is if you have a wire layer current, then the wire command will default to the current.

What I am offering is a different solution that I’ve work on for the wire command. The easiest way to create a wire command link to a selected layer wire; is to create a tool palette Icon.

As you can see below, this is the properties of an Icon tool palette. Under general you can select the layer that you want your Icon to be link too. Thanks to this option you could create a separate palette with all your type of wires you use. The only catch, that layer must exist.

The other option is once again to create an Icon in the CUI of ACADe. I’ve created a macro that activates the layer then activates the wire command. Now don’t get me wrong on this, I have NO experience in lisp routine or visual basic for AutoCAD but I do my best in finding work around. Again, for this tool to work, you must have the layer existing.

Macro = ^C^C-layer;s;"blk 1AWG";;^C^C^P(if(not wd_load)(if(setq x(findfile "wd_load.lsp"))(load x)))(wd_load);wd_inwire
P.S. This macro keeps the layer current once you are done.

Wire all you want now,

CADgneto

How to Purge in AutoCAD Electrical?

How does one purge an AutoCAD Electrical project?
You can use the AutoCAD command Purge. Layers are very important in AutoCAD Electrical, so it is important not to Purge all. ACADe offers a tool that can clean a project with the click of a button.

Under the drop down menu in Projects, there is a command called Project-Wide Utilities. This utility offers many options. I would like to concentrate on the Purge all blocks command.

As you can see, under “For each drawing…” you can select Purge all blocks, the rest can be left as default. This will give you the option to purge all blocks in the Active drawing or the entire project.

If you want to purge as you go, and not at the end of a project, I would suggest that you create your own Icon; it makes it easier then creating a lisp routine. As you can see below this Icon only purges blocks.

Macro = ^C^C-PU;B;*;N;

You can go a step further and purge everything but Layers with the following Macro.

Macro = ^C^C-PU;B;*;N;;D;*;N;;LT;*;N;;M;*;N;;P;*;N;;SH;*;N;;T;*;N;;ST;*;N;

Happy cleaning!

CADgneto

Plot Project

AutoCAD Electrical offers us the option of printing our entire project with a click of a button. The only thing is, it seams we must set up every single pages with the proper setting of printer and pages. One of the reasons that offer this confusion, is because when we fall to the generic list of paper sizes by ACADe we get an option of 17 pages, which half of them we never heard of. With this article I will show you how to plot a project.

As an Application Engineer I’ve notice that most company’s design in model space and plot to fit. These steps are design for if you have everything in model space and have not set up your printer yet.

In the “Batch Plotting Option and Order” a pick list is offered for the layout tabs that are available in the active drawing. If your project is setup in different tab you will see this tool is not the best for you. Since we did set up any page format or plotter will use the Model tab.

The plotter need to be selected, I would suggest that you have a pc3 file of your plotter before you proceed to these step.

To make sure everything is plotted to your likings, you will need to modify your configuration of our plot. Select the Detailed Plot Configuration mode.

One thing to keep in mind when we are selecting the orientation, plot Area and plot to scale, all the pages will have that same setting. If you have half of the sheet drawn in portrait and the other half in landscape I would suggest 2 plot projects, with the selection of the proper sheet. The orientation default is landscape.

Paper size, this is where the generic list is important. The previous article show’s you how to update your list of paper size. Once you select the “Pick from generic list” select your paper size.

If you created a Pen style I would strongly suggested that you use it, because you didn’t create a layer standard for nothing.

Once all your settings are to your liking, select ON. Once back to the “Batch Plotting Option and Order” you will see next to the Detailed Plot Configuration mode ON or OFF. If it reads OFF, that means you haven’t selected ON.

Then you have the option to plot in normal sequence or in reverse order.

Congratulations you’ve plotted your entire project.

If you are interested in doing the same but to create individual DWF file format in “Batch Plotting Option and Order” select the plot to file and type in the folder location or leave it blank for default folder drawing. One thing you will notice is that the DWF will have an extension pc3.dwf but at least then won’t overwrite each other as they get created.

Have a safe plotting,

CADgneto

Generic paper sizes

When it comes to plotting an entire project in AutoCAD Electrical I must say it is a nice feature, but the list of page size is very “Passer”. It is using sheet size from an HP LaserJet 5, that’s why we can not find a B, C, D or E size sheet that we want to use. I don’t know if that stop you from using it, but here is how this article will help you to improve it.

Where is the file that ACADe reads? If you have done the generic install of AutoCAD Electrical you will find it in the following folder, C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Acade 2006\Support\generic_papersizes.txt, if you do not have 2006 it will be in the Acade 2005 or 2004. If you have modified your install it’s in the Support folder of Acade 2006, Acade 2005 or Acade 2004.

Once you have that file open you will see the explanation of what you need to do to modify this file. It’s says “Paper size names below must exactly match what is defined in the plot driver!” In other word the name of the paper that your PC3 or plotter driver reads should be added to this list with the proper spelling, one thing is, I am not sure if it’s case sensitive but why risk it type it the way you see it.

I have done some modification to my generic list and I want to share it with you, I added the “DWF6 ePlot”, “PublishToWeb JPG” and some generic size’s grab from different printer.

generic_papersizes.txt

Happy Plotting,

CADgneto

Block name convention for AutoCAD Electrical

AutoCAD Electrical offer different feature of automation, one of the major role player of the automation are the block component. For the component a major factor to the automation is the name of the block, even thus it’s not mandatory. I want to explain to you what we need to look for when you name a block for AutoCAD Electrical. The following will explain how the naming convention works. The picture below is a name of an AutoCAD block for electrical.

To start, the first 5 character are what control the automation of an AutoCAD Electrical block. The first characters have 2 options the letter H or V. H represent the horizontal block, as for V its vertical block. And those are related to the wire it’s being inserted on; a component is always defaulted to horizontal, with exception.

The second and third character is said to be related to the family type i.e. PB (Push Button), SS (Selector Switch), CR (Control Relays). In reality those 2 characters are link to the database. When you look at the default_cat.mdb of AutoCAD Electrical you will see every table of each component. In other word the 2 following characters are what define your database table.

The forth character is link to be the type of component and you have the option of 1 or 2. 1 represents the parent component and 2 is the child.

The fifth character is optional; from here you can type any name you want unless it’s needed. The fifth represents the N.O. or N.C. connector. Usually the character 1 is connected to N.O. and 2 for N.C. This is design to work with the Toggle NO/NC command. Save a lot of time if you inserted the wrong contact.

I hope this makes more sense on how AutoCAD Electrical works for the block name convention and database. One thing to keep in mind, if you create a Horizontal block, the name of the Vertical component would be exactly the same except for the first character which would be “V”.  Also it you use the fifth character the two blocks would have the exact same name except for the fifth character “1” or “2”.

Enjoy,

CADgneto

AutoCAD Electrical

What is AutoCAD Electrical?

AutoCAD Electrical is an Autodesk Product (Creator's of AutoCAD) which was added to their family of products in 2003 (If memory serve's me right) and came AutoCAD Electrical 2004, It has mature to the release of 2006. Originally it was a product by itself, Via Wire Diagram, which you would add to your AutoCAD. Through acquisition now we are looking at AutoCAD Electrical. Electrical is a nice CAD tool to help you standardize your drawing, reduce design error, and automatically generate a report. With this tool you'll be able to design industrial control systems. AutoCAD Electrical is linked to a database of component information of different vendor i.e. Allen-Bradley, Square D, GE, Eaton and many more.

Here is the Autodesk overview of AutoCAD Electrical.

Through this Blog you will see me add some information, tips and tricks on AutoCAD Electrical and other products. If you have comments or Ideas of what this Blog should contain please fell free to let me know. I am designing this for the AutoCAD Electrical user.