Creating Keyboard Shortcuts in AutoCAD Electrical

Having started using AutoCAD at release 10 I’m partial to hotkeys. However the marking menu has broke the right click menu/hotkey ability. For example I would right click on a component and then press ‘E’ and Edit Component would trigger from the right click menu. I know the marking menu eliminates the need for the hotkey… simply drag straight up and the command starts. But hey, old habits die hard right.
I decided to map some custom hotkeys. Most of the default alias keys are commands that are not used in AutoCAD Electrical. Take ‘E’ for example. By default this is Erase. It may make more sense to have that as Delete Component or Edit Component. Below are the steps needed to modify AutoCAD’s aliases. You may wish to keep the default aliases and add and ‘E’ in front of all your new Electrical aliases. Like EE for Edit  Component and ED for Delete Component

Adding Wire Numbers to Symbols

You may have symbols that require showing the wire number at each wire connection. This would be a manual process for each symbol. However adding an additional _X#TERM## attribute eliminates that need.

Note the underscore in front of the tag.

Here I simply copy and pasted the original wire connection attributes. I then added the underscore and then made them visible.
    
In this example I made my extra wire numbers font size 0.100 where everything else is 0.125.

And after an 'Swap/Update Block' and a new 'Wire Numbers' through the project, here it is!

Managing Projects Inside of AutoCAD Electrical

To take advantage of many of the features of AutoCAD Electrical you MUST be using project files. What are a few of these "features"? Well, any drawing to drawing relationships such as, source and destination arrows, parent-child relationships, and the Automatic Title Block Update cannot function without a project file. Basically anything that involves multiple drawings interacting together.

The project file is simply a text file that uses a .wdp extension. The name of the file is the actual project name. This text file stores the project properties, project descriptions, drawing descriptions, as well as a list of its drawings and their locations.

In release 2013 the project file also stores the subfolders created under the project.

The project file is typically stored in the same folder as the project drawings. However it is not necessary for all drawings to live inside this folder. If a drawing doesn't live inside the project folder, the project file will store the relative path from the project file to the drawing.

Presetting The Surfer's Zoom Distance in AutoCAD Electrical

The Surfer's zoom distance is typically perfect in the schematic. However when moving into panels it tends to zoom in much to far. If you have a panel template, this is something that can be set there as well.

Simply open your panel template and place a sample panel footprint. Then surf to it. Use the Zoom In/Out buttons as needed and then press Zoom Save. Delete the footprint and purge it from your template. That's it! Save this over your existing panel template. If you want to know where this setting is stored, press the 'Read More' link.

Blog News

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past week or so. I have been in the Autodesk Inventor world... I do have some Inventor Cable and Harness posts planned. And now this week I have moved into the world of AutoCAD Plant 3D. I sure wish some of Plant's features would make their way over to the Electrical side! Plant 3D is a very slick software package.

As for this blog, I have been opening many of the past posts and reposting them under their proper categories. For example: Creating a custom PLC style in AutoCAD Electrical was NOT listed under PLC. My categories have kind of evolved into what they are now and I plan on sticking with this latest set. I'm sure a few new ones will be added in time.

Breaking The wd.env File Down Line By Line

The wd.env file is simply a text file that contains settings and paths that direct AutoCAD Electrical to certain files and actions. These files can include the catalog and footprint lookup databases, slide libraries, and user circuits. This file is pivotal to setting up a proper networked/multi-user environment.

Where does the wd.env file live? See this blog post..  Where Does The wd.env Path Get Set?

Listed below in red is the default wd.env file. My comments will be in black under the line they are describing. Throughout this break-down I will show examples of changes, showing both the wd.env file and the results.

First of all, every line that starts with an asterisk (*) is ignored by Electrical. These lines are for our comments and notes while working on the file. Instead of blowing away an entire line and replacing it with my own text, I will add an asterisk to the default line and then copy and paste it below the line being modified. That way I can always reference or return to the default if needed. And as always, make a copy of this file before you start playing with it.

AutoCAD Electrical - Wire From/To Annotation On the Schematic

I have used this twice in the past. It's not quite what the customer wanted but its close. I think with a little tweaking it could be perfect.

AutoCAD Electrical is not set up to show From/To tags on the schematic. All the info is there but only available in reports. But it is not set up to actually INSERT pieces of "smart" from/to text right on each connection of the schematics.

Here is a small AutoLisp utility created by Nate Holt. If you want to give it a try, download the file, APPLOAD it, and type OTHER_END [Enter] at your command line. The active drawing should update.

And here is what it does:
   1. Insert the annotation at the wire connection points, justify and rotate to follow the connected wire.
   2. Annotation to follow the same as a from/to report taking into account any special "wire sequencing" overrides or source/destination arrow connections.
   3. Text can be manually repositioned.
   4. Text will be "smart" in that it can be updated if connections changed - even if the text is moved.
   5. Text put on its own layer so it can be turned on and off.

Here are the before and after screen grabs. The tag-ID and pin number for the opposite end of each wires connection point. Note that CR408 shows multiple connections on both sides.

                  

From IMAGINiT Back To IMAGINiT

While sorting through some old papers in preparation for taxes, I ran across some long forgotten papers. I was working as a draftsman for Steiner Turf and Brouwer Turf at the time. When I first started we were on AutoCAD 12. Soon after our upgrade to 14 we decided to move into the 3D world and purchased Mechanical Desktop. I was sent to Technical Software for some accelerated training on our new software.

We designed one sod harvester using MDT. The Rollmax 2400! It rolled 2' by 100' rolls, wrapped them in webbing and discharged them out the SIDE! It was the first harvester of its time to discharge out the side. All others dumped out the rear requiring a fork lift in the field to move the completed rolls before another pass could be made.

 

Understanding and Customizing Electrical's Ladder Reference Numbers (MLR)

The ladder is unique in that each number running down the side is simple text. Delete these and the ladder continues to function just fine. However the first number is a block with several hidden attributes. Delete it and the ladder is nothing more than dumb AutoCAD lines and text. So in all reality the first number on the ladder IS the ladder. Components and wires will auto-number as if the rest of the ladder is not present. Nothing else is needed! So this post is really about the Master Ladder Reference or MLR block.

The first thing I always do when tackling a subject in Electrical, is figure out what blocks are in play. I open each and take a look at what attributes are in each. This helps me understand why each block acts the way it does. Then I start tweaking and observe the results. So what blocks are at play here?

The MLR Blocks

The horizontal ladder MLR blocks all start with WD_MLRH and the vertical MLR's start with WD_MLRV. In the images below the blocks are in order and shown in both exploded and in use.

Company Wire Numbering - Advancing Wire Numbers By One

This was posted on the Autodesk's Electrical Discussion Group. <<AutoCAD Electrical's Discussion Group>>

Someone needed to customize the numbering to match their company's standard. I decided to tackle this to show how flexible Electrical can be with a little customizing. Well... that and I love a good challenge.

• We make our line reference numbers the sheet number with 000 and increment by 10 for each rung ( The first three rungs on sheet two would be 2000, 2010,2020…).
• Our components are set up like %F%S%N and always end with a zero (i.e FU2010, PB2010, CB2010...) unless there are two components with the same Family prefix on the same line, then the they increment by one (i.e. PB2010, PB2011, PB2012...).
• The wire numbers never end with a zero and the wire number increment with respect to the Line Reference number. -Ex.So on first rung of sheet two the wire numbers would be 2001,2002, 2003 and rung 3 would be 2031,2032, 2033. (It needs to be something like %S%N but the %N needs to increment.)

ACADE seems to only add prefixes to the the end of Line reference numbers. Is there anyway to increment the wire number?

The real problem is advancing the wire numbers and components. Electrical will only ADD to the end wires numbers and tag names. I started doing some testing and one thing let to another. Here is my work around to this limitation. As always I welcome comments and suggestions if you see better ways to do anything.