Bill of materials - wires/cables in Autocad Electrical

[ionescu.bogdan.g]

Hello,

Is there any way to assign lengths to cables and to create an automated BOM which contains all types of wire used ( AWG + color ) and the relative total length?

Thanks in advance

[dougmcalexander]

There is no inherent functionality to support this.  There is a field named CLEN (short for calculated length) which can be added to your wire from/to list report and the lengths, if known, can be typed into this field using Edit Mode from the report dialog. (see attached screen capture)

I wrote an external MS Access database application that allows me to import the from/to list and perform calculations of total amount of wire needed for each wire type.  I also added fields for defining the type of termination device (i.e. ring, spade, ferrule, etc.).

[ionescu.bogdan.g]

Hello,

Thank you for your answer.

Not to abuse your patience but can you please also tell me How to change CLEN for a wire in the schematic?

I am trying to do right click -> Change/convert wire type. I see Used, wire type, size, layer name, wire numbering and some user fields. How do I get to change CLEN?

I am using autocad electrical 2012 and I'm relatively new.

So if I understand right I do this : define clen for each wire (or atleast each wire that counts), make a from/to report including clen field. After this can't I just export it to excel and make the calculations in excel ? I just need total amount of cable of each type ( ie 1000m yellow 1.5mm^2 ; 500m blue 6mm^2 ...)

Thanks again

[ionescu.bogdan.g]

Hello,

I managed to change the CLEN from the Report Edit, but it gets lost. I create a report, I put in length, save it. When I try to create another report (something changed) I have to fill all CLEN again.

Is there any solution to this?

Thanks

[dougmcalexander]

CLEN is only a field that can be added to a report as a place for you to type in wire length. The data is not stored anywhere other than in the report itself, when you print it or insert as a table on a drawing, or save as a spreadsheet. You can rename CLEN to something like Wire Length after you add it to your report, the same as how you rename any of the other fields in a report.