Multi-level Terminals – Part 2

Hello again and welcome back to the wonderful world of terminals!! My name is Jared, and I will be your guide through this wild adventure. Ok, so, maybe it won’t be so wild, but it definitely can be an adventure and it is always my pleasure to be your guide and to help show you anything I can about AutoCAD Electrical! As I promised some time ago, I am following up the previous post titled, Multi-level Terminals – Part 1, with this uniquely named post which will cover the following areas:

• Quickly associating terminals in “existing” drawings
• Breaking apart terminal associations
• Overview of the multi-level terminal tools

Let’s start out with a quick video on the first topic, “Quickly associating terminals in “existing” drawings”:

Now that we have covered several ways to associate terminals, let’s take a look at the opposite task; “Breaking apart terminal associations”:

Finally, lets recap the various tools that can help with multi-level terminals:

Disclaimer: The definitions/descriptions for these tools were pulled from the AutoCAD Electrical 2010 help.

Associate Terminals - Use the Associate Terminals tool to associate two or more terminal symbols together. Associating schematic terminals combines the terminals into a single terminal block property definition. The number of schematic terminals that can be combined is limited to the number of levels defined for the block properties. Associating a panel terminal provides a way to define a particular panel footprint to represent a schematic block property definition.

Break Apart Terminal Associations - Use the Break Apart Terminal Associations tool to break a terminal symbol out of an existing association. Schematic terminals are removed from any multi-tier relationship and any schematic-panel relationships. Panel terminals are removed from any schematic-panel relationships.

Note: The properties of the existing terminal association are maintained on each symbol.

Copy Terminal Block Properties - Use the Copy Terminal Block Properties tool to copy terminal properties from one terminal symbol to another. If the application of the terminal properties reduces the number of levels and the number of schematic terminal symbols in the association exceeds the total allowed, an alert displays and the properties are not copied.

Well, that’s it for now, I hope you find some of this information useful!

“Advanced Productivity” topics in help…

I wanted to write a quick post to help raise awareness about a great section in the AutoCAD Electrical Help.  This section is called “Advanced Productivity” and contains some great information about a variety of topics.  This is a great resource, and I hope you find the information  helpful!

The first step is accessing the help.  In the image below, you can see a quick and easy access point within AutoCAD Electrical 2010:

 

Once on the main page of the help, you will see the “Advanced Productivity” link as I’ve called out in the image below:

From there, you can see the list of topics to choose from:

So, I hope you find some of these topics useful!!!

Enjoy!!!!

A quick look at navigating your way through your project in AutoCAD Electrical 2010…

There are several methods to easily navigate through your project in AutoCAD Electrical and I want to take a quick minute here to share those with you.

Project Manager:

The project manager allows you to quickly open the exact drawing from your project that you are looking for. You can expand the list, scroll down and either double-click or right-click and select “open” on the drawing that you wish to do just that, open.

The Next/Previous Drawing Buttons:

The next/previous drawing buttons allow you to do exactly what it sounds like, to quickly move to the next and previous drawing in the project. By default, when either are selected, the current drawing is saved and closed as you move to either the next or previous drawing. As an alternative, you can hold the “SHIFT” key when selecting either the next or previous buttons and the current drawing will remain open as the adjacent drawing is opened.

In AutoCAD Electrical 2010, you can access these command from the “Project” tab on the ribbon:

In addition, these commands have been added to the Quick Access Toolbar in AutoCAD Electrical 2010. This placement allows for quick access to these commands no matter what tab you are currently accessing commands from:

Surfer:

The surfer command can be an extremely powerful tool in many situations. Let’s take a quick look at the different ways the surfer command can be used in the following short video:

Poll: Regarding the Mark/Verify command

Hello!

It has been a while since my last post, but I will be following up with the additional posts regarding multi-level terminals soon!! For now, I have added a couple of polls (you can see them on the right) regarding the Mark/Verify command. If you have a few seconds, please take a look and provide your feedback regarding your awareness of the command prior to my blog posting, and your usage of the command in your work.

Thanks,

Jared

*The poll is now closed, thank you for responding.*

Multi-Level Terminals – Part 1

It seems fitting that the subject of multi-level terminals becomes my first multi-post topic. In this first post, I will look to cover, or in some cases uncover and shed some light on the following topics:

Multi-Level Terminals – Part 1

• Terminal Properties


• Quickly Associating Terminals in “New” Drawings

Here is a preview of the topics for the additional segments of this post:

Multi-Level Terminals – Part 2

• Quickly Associating Terminals in “Existing” Drawings


• Breaking Apart Terminal Associations


• Overview of the Multi-Level Terminal Tools

and…

Multi-Level Terminals – Part 3

• Multi-Level Terminals and Terminal Strip Editor

Now back to this post…

Associations – it is no longer just a term used to describe the relationships that you have with other people such as your friends, family, and co-workers; but now in AutoCAD Electrical, it is used to describe the relationship that is created between the various terminal representations.

In the image above, I am illustrating the relationship between the various representations of a 3 level terminal. On the left, you see the 3 schematic terminal representations, in this association, they each represent an individual level of this 3 level terminal. On the right, you see a single panel footprint of a terminal, this is representing the 3 level terminal, and is linked to all 3 schematic representations. Ok, this is all good as far as the end result goes, but how did we get to this point and how can you create these associations quickly and easily in your workflows.

Well, today we will cover two topics to get our feet wet, Terminal Properties and Quickly Associating Terminals in “New” Drawings. I hope you enjoy the short videos on these topics and that you find them informative and useful. I am still learning a bit and trying to dial in the settings around these videos, so please bear with me a bit, but definitely provide some feedback so that I know where to improve!!

Terminal Properties:

Quickly Associating Terminals in “New” Drawings:

AutoCAD Electrical 2010 preview - Publishing to PDF…

Knock, knock……..

Yes folks, it is getting to be that time of year again and AutoCAD Electrical 2010 is knocking on the door.  I want to begin to share some things about the upcoming release to give you a glimpse of what is coming.

I have heard many customers in the past express the need to publish all of their drawings in a project, into a single PDF file, not individual PDF files for each drawing in the project.  Well, if this is of interest to you, you will definitely want to keep reading!!!

With AutoCAD Electrical 2010, will come the ability to choose to publish to a “multi-sheet file” rather than a “single-sheet file”.  Follow the process/steps below to give this a try!!

Step 1:  Accessing the Command

Select the “Publish to DWF” command available in the AutoCAD Electrical Project Manager:

Step 2:  Select the Drawings to Process

Here you will select the drawings to process for the task at hand, which in this case, will be to plot/publish:

Step 3:  Entering the Publish Setup:

You are presented with a few initial options before entering the full Publish Options dialog:

Step 4:  Selecting the Publish Options:

Now it is time to define how these drawings are going to be published.  There are many more options in here than what I will cover in this post, so play around with them to get the exact results that you are looking for!

Below shows where you will want to make the selection to create a PDF file":

Now we will select the “Publish Options” button to make a couple more selections:

Once selected, you will see the following dialog:

In this dialog, we will want to change the “Type” to “Multi-sheet file”, which will publish all of the previously selected drawings into a single PDF file.  You may also take a look at the “Layer information” option, which would give you the ability to bring the layer information into the PDF and the ability to turn those on and off:

*I have only touched on a couple of the key options, I would recommend exploring more of the options to see exactly what they may have to offer you!

Step 5:  Completing the Publish:

Ok, now that you have worked your way through and selected the options to meet your needs, we are ready to complete the publish and create the PDF file.  To do this, just select the “Publish” button:

If you left the “Naming” option set to “Prompt for name”, then you will also see the dialog to select the file location and assign the file name:

The final result will be, of course dependent upon the options you selected, but in this case, my results are a single PDF file containing all of the drawings that I selected from the project with the ability to turn the view of the layers on and off….

Finally, here is a video to show the process that I went through.  I hope you find this information useful!

A hidden gem…

So, I just found something earlier this week that although it appears to have been implemented around AutoCAD 2006, I was not aware of it and do not know how many other people might be in the same boat.

Have you ever been in the middle of drawing a line or moving an object and realized that it would be very helpful if Ortho was turned on, but currently it isn’t?

Have you ever been in the middle of drawing a line or moving an object and realized that it would be very helpful if Ortho was not turned on, but currently it is?

If so, the next time you encounter this situation, try this, hold down the “SHIFT” key.  This shift key will temporarily turn ortho on or off while you are drawing a line, moving an object, etc.  This could come in very handy and keep you from having to look for that pesky button to turn ortho off while you are in the middle of drawing.

Well, hopefully this will come as news to some others out there and you will find it useful!

Have a great week!

Put your “Mark” on your projects before you share them…

During some meetings at AU a couple of months back, many users expressed their continued need to share their data with others who may, or may not be using AutoCAD Electrical. One big question, and sometimes a potential problem that arises from this is that you never truly know exactly what was done with the drawings while they were out of your possession. One solution to this, would be to provide non-editable versions of the file, either give them DWF files or PDF files. For some, this may not be an option, and the dwg files will have to be shared. Now, if only there were a way for us to keep track of changes that occur in the drawings from the time they are sent out, to the time they are returned……

We are in luck! AutoCAD Electrical has a tool that can help with this exact situation, the Mark/Verify command. With this command, you can “mark” the drawings before they leave your possession, and then when they are returned, you can run the “verify” portion that will give you a report of the changes that happened since you “marked” the drawing set. There are a few options that you can choose from and this will report manual AutoCAD edits, or edits that took place with AutoCAD Electrical tools. Take a look at the sample video and let me know what you think, then give it a try yourself!!

Changing the default Tag value’s, without modifying the blocks

Imagine this, you have just completed a project, but now the customer has stated that they need of the the relays to be tagged with “K” rather than “CR” and the lights to be tagged with “LITE” instead of “LT”.  Well, you don’t want to edit everything individually, and you don’t currently have excel, so exporting to excel and making the changes to import back in is not an option either.  Instead, you can simply create a little file with notepad, then run the retag command and watch the component tags update!!

Before:

 

After:

Now, exactly what did I do to make this happen.  Well, it was easy!!  First, I opened notepad and added the lines:

I then saved the file with the name “wd_fam.dat” and to the location:

VISTA – C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD Electrical 2009\R17.2\enu\Support\User

XP - C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Autodesk\AutoCAD Electrical 2009\R17.2\enu\Support\User

This could also save you time at the beginning of projects, rather than modifying the library symbols, you can simply create this file and when new components are inserted into the drawing, it will be used to define the tag just as it was in the retag operation above.

Here is a screenshot of the help where this information and more can be found.  Just do a search for wd_fam.dat and away you go!!

I hope you find this useful!!

AutoCAD Electrical Beta is Live!

I am a little late, but still happy to announce the the AutoCAD Electrical Beta is now live.  If you are not already a member of “MyFeedback”, you can use the following link to register:

Register Here

When you are signing up, be sure to enter “Voyager” as the Beta Code.  Once you are approved, you will be able to download the beta.  Please be sure to provide your feedback on the beta discussion groups!!  (Note:  The Beta is confidential, so you should not discuss anything publically through comments on this blog, or the public discussion group/any public forum regarding the beta)

Enjoy!!

Welcome!!

Hello and thanks for visiting my blog! I am very excited about the possibilities blogging gives me to share my knowledge and experience around the AutoCAD Electrical product. I am also excited to hear from all of you and to read your comments regarding my postings that I make here and any suggestions that you may have regarding topics for my posts. You can find out a little more about me by reading the "About Me" area, I hope to update this information and this blog on a regular basis!