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.

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.

This data is stored as Xdata on the wd_m block. Typically this block is store at 0,0. However it has no geometry or visible attributes. That makes it quite hard to select. The easiest way to see/select this block is to toggle ATTMODE to 2. This shows ALL attributes in all blocks. My wd_m block is shown below after switching ATTMODE to 2.
    

Now that we can see the block, we need to start the Xdata Editor to view and create Xdata. You find this from the Project tab under the Other Tools panel's dropdown.

After starting the command, click on the wd_m block. The default value is 2 (64 if metric). A larger number will zoom out more.
If you do not have the VIA_WD_SURF_ZOOM name, press Add New and add it. This value is missing until a 'Zoom Save' has been pressed on the Surfer. From that point on this Xdata is stored here.
 

Listed below are several zoom distances that may help you decide what value to choose. Listed below, and in this order, are SURF_ZOOM's 1.5, 2, 6, and 12. Rather than messing with numbers, you can always press the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons and then Zoom Save button once you like the zoom distance. That's what is shown below... three different zoom distances.

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.

The Project Manager

The Project Manager is the palette used when working with anything project related. If this pallet is missing, press the Manger button on the Project tab to bring it back on screen. This is like any other AutoCAD palette; it can be docked to the side as well as minimized and expanded as needed. In the video loop below I am showing how to dock/undock and minimize/expand a tool pallet.

The Project Manager is made up of four parts.

The top toolbar.

The project menu.

This menu is accessed by clicking on the down arrow button. This menu shows the name of the active project as well as a list of the currently loaded projects. Clicking on one of the project names will make it active. We will talk more about "active" projects in a bit. There is also a recent option that shows a quick menu of recent projects, loaded and unloaded, for quick selection. Selecting a project from the Recent menu will load it into the Project Manager and make it the active project.

The project drawing area.

In this area you can view, and open, the drawings listed under any of the loaded projects. The active project is always bold and at the top of the list. The active project is the current project the software is working in. Create a project wide BOM and you will get a BOM of the "active" project regardless of what drawing you have loaded. The "active" project is monitored for changes that must take place on other drawings. Such as source and destination arrows, parent child relationships, footprints, and wire numbers. Because of this you must make sure you always have the correct project set as the "active" project or many commands will not function as expected.

Double clicking on any drawing will open it. Double clicking on a project or folder will expand or collapse it. To set a project as "active" you must right click on it and choose Activate.
Right clicking on the active project offers the following options. (See image on right)

Here you can add or remove drawings, change the order of the drawings (2013 supports drag and drop), create a drawing list report, add subfolders (2013), start the title block update command, access the project properties and more. Closing a project will remove it from the Project Manger palette.

Right clicking on a drawing in any project offers the following options.

Removing a drawing from a project will not deleted the actual dwg. It will only remove it from the project's drawing list. From here you can also access this drawings properties.

Rename is the proper way to change the dwg's file name. If you use Windows Explorer to rename several drawings, the project will error on open and require a manual relinking of all renamed files. Using the Rename open will update the project file as well as rename the actual dwg files. You can not rename a file that is currently open. A 'Renamed Failed' error will appear.


Right clicking on a project that is NOT active gives this menu.
 
At the top of the menu is Activate. Choosing this will make the selected project the active project.

Close will remove this project from the Project Manager. It can always be opened again if needed.

The Exception List shows a small report of which drawings properties do not match their project's properties.

And finally the project/drawing info area.

Creating a New Project

There are two ways to start the New Project command. One of them is on the Project Manager's top toolbar , the other is under the Project Menu. (see image on left)

Selecting one of these brings up a dialog that will create the project folder and the project file (wdp) itself. Once created it will automatically be listed as the active project.

Simply give the new project a name and a location. If you have an existing project you wish to copy project properties from, you can select that here as well.

Press the Descriptions button to add project descriptions.
Pressing OK will create the project, and make it active. Pressing
OK - Properties will do this as well but will also display the Project Properties dialog.

This is an empty project so double clicking on it in the project manager will do nothing. You now need to add drawings or create new ones.

Opening Exiting Projects

Starting in release 2012 an Open Projectbutton is on the Project Manager's toolbar. Before that 'Open Project' was selected from the Project Managers project menu. (see image on left)

If any drawings are missing from the project, you will be given the opportunity to locate the missing drawings and the project file will update as needed.

The Recent option will open closed projects as well. Only the past 30 projects are stored here. For more info on this text file (lastproj.fil) see this blog post. Recent Projects

Project Descriptions

These descriptions can be pushed to title block attributes using the Title Block Update utility. If the 'in reports' box is checked, that description line can be pushed as a header in most reports.

More about the Title Block Update and the Project Description Labels can be found here. Title Block Update - The Basics

Project Properties

The properties that show this symbol are project specific. The properties that have this symbol are drawing specific. The drawing properties will always be honored before the projects. Why would we want that? Well a point to point cable drawing may be numbered sequentially while all other drawings are ladder reference. There are tools available to push the projects 'drawing' properties down to any, or all, drawings. Drawing properties can also be pushed down a single property at a time. 

Plotting a Project

Pressing the Plot button on the Project Manager's toolbar provides a menu of various publish options. I already have a blog post about the Plot Project options. Batch-Plotting-a-Project

For the ZIP Project utility to work, you must specify a compression utility in the wd.env file.

Subfolders

Starting in release 2013 subfolders can be created in the Project Manager. Subfolders allow another way of managing drawings inside of a project. Drawings can be "drag and dropped" in and out of these subfolders.

When running project wide utilities, subfolders is a new selection/sorting option. (see image on right)

For example I can now plot all drawings by subfolder, or create a BOM of all drawings by subfolder.

Other Project Wide Tools and Utilities.

The Project-Wide Update/Retag tool is available from the toolbar on the Project Manager as well on the ribbon's Project tab. This utility awesome for making mass changes after updating project and drawing settings. From one dialog box you can retag components, update wire numbers, resequence ladders, update sheet numbers, as well as update title blocks. This will do everything that is needed, in the proper order, project wide! Each of these are individual commands but this dialog will run them all back to back.

The Project Utilities , from the Project tab, is another nice project wide tool. Once a project is actually wired, all wire numbers and components should be fixed to keep future edits from changing existing tags/numbers. This utility can fix/lock wire numbers, source/destination arrows, component tags, and item numbers project wide. It can also change them all back to normal should this project ever be copied for a new design. 

Checking the Change Attribute Size box allows a project wide change of many default Electrical attributes. If a certain client wants the DESC text half size, this utility is for you.

If you want to change an attribute's height for all projects, you really should update the entire symbol library rather than depend on this utility on every project. There's a utility for that as well.
 

If you have a script you need to run on all drawings, this utility can run it project wide with no setup.

Starting with release 2012 Wire Types can be pulled from a selected drawing to all drawings project wide.

When logged into Vault, status icons show to the left of each drawing. These circles show the status of the files in your workspace against the the versions in Vault.

Copy Project

From the Project tab Copy Project starts a wizard that walks you through copying an existing project to a new name with all new drawing names.

Project Tips

Close unused projects. Keep only the projects you are actively working on loaded in the Project Manger. When AutoCAD Electrical starts it verifies that every drawing, in every loaded project, is still in place. Having 20+ projects loaded can cause significant delays each time Electrical starts.

Rather then edit the project file using Notepad to change mass drawing descriptions, consider exporting the drawing settings using the Export Data to Spreadsheet utility. On import the project file will immediately update and all drawings will see the new changes. I have seen people struggle with getting Electrical to see the changes that happened directly in the wdp file.

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!

Method 1

If you have the Express Tools installed, the Command Aliases command is the easiest way to find, and edit, this file. If the Express Tools are not installed you will need to run through the Add/Remove programs and check the Express Tools box.

Be sure to File\Export a copy as a backup before you start messing the file… you know, just in case.

Method 2

• Make a backup of the following file
  • C:\Users\<username>\appdata\roaming\autodesk\autocad electrical 2013\r19.0\enu\support\acad.pgp

• Open acad.pgp with a text editor like Notepad or Wordpad
  • Make any necessary changes.
   

• REINIT or restart Electrical to test the new aliases.

This question just came in… “Stan is there a way to export all the parts currently in a drawing set into its own small data base because we use the same parts over and over, and the ACAD Electrical data base is just to big to be searching over our network.”

This is not the first time I have been asked this. And in fact there is a neat little utility that does just this. It’s kind of hidden under the Other Tools drop down.
 

It will create ALL of the family tables even if no catalog entries are needed. The default location is the active project file. However this file could just as easily replace your default catalog.

Hope this helps.

This isn’t really electrical in nature. However it is about AutoCAD Electrical, and I put a bit of time into this article, so I want this group to see it as well.

http://www.cadalyst.com/cad/autocad/mechanical-applications-autocad-electrical-16515

Remember to say “Thank You” on Monday. It’s so much more than a BBQ day.

This question keeps coming up. It’s on the Autodesk Discussion Groups, its a call I have answered several times on IMAGINiT’s support desk, and it was just posted on our own discussion group… Productivity Now Discussion Forum - Electrical Product Catalog Post

The default install of AutoCAD Electrical only includes a few manufactures. If pressing the catalog Lookup button only shows a few manufactures, my guess is the others aren't installed.

Go to the “uninstall a program” dialog from Windows Control Panel. Select AutoCAD Electrical and the press Uninstall/Change.
  

Shown below are the dialogs for both Electrical 2013 and 2014. Press Add or Remove Features.
   

Select all desired manufactures and then press Next through the next few dialogs. Be prepared to insert the media or point the installer to the downloaded (and extracted) files.
   

Creating a Drawing List Report

The Options

Drawing List Template

Anyone modifying existing block attributes has run into the mysteries of how to update the existing blocks on the drawing. Reinserting the block doesn't update the attributes. I should be using Swap/Update block. However when testing I tend to keep the changes inside the test drawing using embedded blocks. Doing this means the existing occurrences of this updated block must have their attributes synchronized.

The only problem I have with this method of updating existing blocks is having all attributes return to the blocks default layer. Today I learned when using the Swap/Update block all attributes are placed back on the proper Electrical layer. This is a great little discovery. Now I can continue editing the block within the drawing until I’m happy with it, then WBLOCK it back out to the library. Following that up with an Swap/Update puts existing blocks back in order.

You can set a LISP utility to run each time you open a drawing from the Project Manager. This is set in the wd.env file. Look for the line that starts with *WD_OPEN_DWG.
         <<Link to my post about the wd.env file>>

“How do I mark a symbol/wire that has a problem, or missing information, and later quickly find it?” Last week this question came up again.

Below is some code that you can find inside of Electrical’s help as sample LISP code. Simply copy and paste it into a text file and save the file as Fix_Me.lsp. APPLOAD this file.

(defun c:fix_me ( / ss en ed xy)
  ; Look for any block insert on the drawing with a block name of "FIX_ME"
  (setq ss (ssget "_X"'((-4 . "<AND")(0 . "INSERT")(2 . "FIX_ME")(-4 . "AND>"))))
  (if (/= ss nil)
    (progn ; one or more found. Zoom up on the first one found
      (setq en (ssname ss 0)) ; entity name of first or only block
      (setq ss nil) ; release the selection set
      (setq ed (entget en))
      (setq xy (cdr (assoc 10 ed))) ; block insertion point
      (command "_.ZOOM""_CENTER" xy 1.0)
      (princ "\nThis needs attention!!!\n")
  ) )   
  (princ)
)

Typing ‘fix_me’ will now run the script which zooms in on the first block named fix_me that the script finds. So create a block named fix_me and give it attributes for notes as well as all symbol attributes. This fix_me symbol can then be used when a needed symbol is missing and the engineer is waiting on the CAD Admin to create it. Once the new symbol is finished the fix_me symbol can be swapped (Swap/Update Block) with the new one. Values in the attributes will carry across to the new symbol. It could also be placed off to the side of a symbol with missing catalog info, or anything else the engineer is unsure of at the time of placement.

So once the LISP file and block are created, why not run them each time a drawing is opened? This takes us back to the WD_OPEN_DWG line in the wd.env file. If your block and LISP files are both named fix_me replace the default *WD_OPEN_DWG line with this…
WD_OPEN_DWG,(if(not c:fix_me)(if(setq x(findfile "fix_me.lsp"))(load x)))(if c:fix_me (c:fix_me))

Pretty slick right.

Last week while discussing the ‘fix_me’ LISP with Jeff D. from Harris Corporation, Jeff suggested skipping the script all together and instead filling in the fix_me’s block TAG1 default prefix with fix_me-. Then later surfing the project for any symbols with a TAG starting with ‘fix_me’. This is a great idea.

Create a new symbol called fix_me and add it to the icon menu. Make sure to add fix_me- to the TAG1 attribute as the default prefix. Now it can be inserted like a normal symbol. The tag will take on fix_me- as a prefix and whatever the proper reference number should be. ex. fix_me-101

Now to surf project wide for any symbols starting with fix_me….

Start the Surfer from the Project tab.
 
The command is asking you to select something for the Surfer to tract. Instead press Enter.

From this dialog you can use many wild cards to search the entire project for components, catalog numbers, wire numbers, and item numbers.

Add fix_me* to the Component tag field and press OK. Project wide all components who’s TAG starts with fix_me are shown. From here I can surf to each one.

This gives a list of all components in one list. Something the ‘fix_me’ script does not. However users will need to remember to run this from time to time. Where as the ‘fix_me’ script runs every time the drawings is opened.

Just another option. I thought it was a cool idea. Thanks Jeff.

It seems many vendors are no longer offering 2D drawings of their components and are instead posting 3D models. This makes for a very large drawing and affects overall performance.

This isn’t a problem. Using FLATSHOT, an existing AutoCAD command, the 3D model can easily be broken into 2D top and side views. Insert the model into a drawing by itself. Use the ViewCube to rotate the model as needed.

Now type in the command FLATSHOT.

Set the destination for the new 2D block. In this example I will simply insert it back on the same drawing. However a footprint could be exported directly to the Custom Footprint folder from here.

Next you configure the lines. Checking ‘Show’ under Obscured lines will add hidden lines to the footprint.

Press Create and verify the new 2D block is as desired.

I have seen a few other ways to do this type of thing but personally FLATSHOT is my favorite. Its simple yet has a number of options. And its already a part of the software.

Here's the utility:

Once again I have a someone using AutoCAD commands inside of Electrical and their confused by the results. This time it was AutoCAD’s MIRROR command causing the problem. When using the AutoCAD MIRROR command, the wire connection attributes end up switching sides and future wires will attempt to enter the wrong side of the symbol.

Below the connector has been mirrored using the AutoCAD command and notice how the new red wire now pulls off of it. Its because the wire connection attributes have switched sides.

The wires know what direction to go based off of attribute name.
X1TERM0# wires come into the component from the right.
X2TERM0# wires come into the component from the top.
X4TERM0# wires come into the component from the left.
X8TERM0# wires come into the component from the bottom.

The answer is to simply use the correct AutoCAD Electrical command: Reverse/Flip Component
 

This update adds new AB content to the existing AutoCAD Electrical content databases.

 http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=21972810&linkID=9240738 
As with any update be sure to review the Readme to be sure its installed properly.

This link contains the additional content details.. AB-RA Content Details

This is a follow up to the <<Swapping Entire Symbol Libraries Project Wide>> post. After switching all symbols from JIC to IEC, the next step could be switching wire connection dots to angle connections.
 

There is an existing tool that does just that. AETOGGLETEE It’s located under the Edit Wires panel.

After starting the command, window select the dots to be converted. Or type ALL and press enter. This selects the entire drawing and converts all connection dots at once. I noticed it only seems to select the dots that are currently on the screen even when typing ALL. So be sure to Zoom Extents first.

Editing this buttons macro to do all dots would be as easy as…
ZOOM E AETOGGLETEE ALL  ^C
(note the space behind the ^C)

So moving from dots to angles is quite easy. How about angles back to dots? Not so easy, but I’ve found a script that does just that.
Download it <<here>> or make your own using the script below.

Remember a script can be run project wide from the Project Utilities dialog.

It may just be my new fitness routine, but I found this quite funny.

Found on http://physicshumor.blogspot.com/
I can’t read the signature on the lower right so I can’t give credit where its due.