Here is a general outline for setting up AcadE 2006 to create
aviation/aerospace point-to-point schematics. 2005 is the same except for
where to access the various configuration dialogs. Note: this is not simple.
A. Project-wide settings
As you start a new project, adjust the project's properties (create your
project, right click on the project's name in the Projects secondary window
dialog ' select "Properties" ' "Wire Numbers") to include the following
options on the Miscellaneous Wire and Wire Numbering Settings subdialog :
1. "Enable auto gap adjustment of in-line wire number/text labels" - toggle
"ON". Aviation wire numbers are generally "in-line" and can sometimes get
quite long. Turn this option "on" so that the gap in the wire will
auto-adjust as required. Select the "Setup" button to adjust the parameters
of the in-line wire gaps. For the "C" setting, if you want to have all gaps
be a certain minimum width then put in a value greater than 0.0 in this edit
box.
2. "Special: wire numbering on a per-wire basis" - toggle "ON". Aviation
wire numbering is generally on a per wire basis, not AcadE's normal "per
network" basis. This alternate mode will instruct AcadE to process your
project's drawings on a per wire basis. every wire that ties at both end to
a device (that is, anything other than a "tee" connection or a "dumb"
terminal or in-line wire label) will be assigned its own wire number.
B. Drawing-wide settings
You can either set these up as you create each drawing or preset on your
blank drawing border template/drawing. Select the Drawing Configuration
command from the schematic toolbar or the Project pull-down menu.
1. "Wire Cross" setup - bottom left-hand corner of the Drawing Configuration
dialog - change to either "Solid" or "Gap".
2. "Referencing" - select either the X-Zone or X-Y grid mode. Then select
"Setup" to configure the zone or grid referencing origin point and spacing
(this is a good reason why having this already set up on your electrical
drawing template will save time).
3. "Layers" - the default configuration will come in with one wire layer
defined, "WIRES". For aviation type schematics, this may be sufficient as
the wire color and gauge values are often embedded in the assigned wire
number. But, if you want to take advantage of displaying different wire
types in different colors and have this information pulled into various
from/to connection reports, it might make sense to go ahead and set up some
additional wire layer names.
4. Freeze layer "WIREFIXED" - for reasons that will be explained later, go
ahead and freeze this layer. Manually entered wire numbers, marked "fixed",
are going to remain hidden.
5. Set up the component tagging default to whatever makes sense. The wire
number format probably doesn't matter since you will probably be manually
overwriting each auto-generated wire number.
C. Library Symbols
This will take some effort. The industrial electrical symbols that default
with the product's install are not going to meet your needs. One way to
build an AcadE "smart" symbol library of aviation symbols is to convert
symbols off of an existing non-AcadE schematic drawing. See the Black Box
Builder documentation to help you get going or use straight AutoCAD commands
to manually insert the various wire connection attributes and such and then
Wblock out.
For symbols that come in with one or more plug/jack connectors already in
place, consider building a "circuit" instead of a symbol. Add your symbols
and circuits to the AcadE icon menuing system to make selection and
insertion quick and easy. Look for an example of this in an upcoming posting
on this discussion group.
Connectors - it may not make sense to try to create a whole library of
connector symbols. Consider using a variation of the PLC parametric build
command to build connectors "on the fly". You can access this by typing
wd_para_bld_dlg at your "Command:" prompt. Some samples are shown.
If you are only going to be using AcadE for this type of work, it may make
sense to force the default library's wire number block inserts to be very
small. This will make things less messy if the user accidentally thaws the
WIREFIXED layer. To make this change, open up drawings wd_wnv.dwg,
wd_wnh.dwg, wd_wcv.dwg, and wd_wch.dwg. Make the WIRENO attribute definition
very small and move it close to the origin 0,0.
An alternate way of suppressing these non-inline wire numbers is to "hide"
them. Use the "Hide Wire Number" command on the tool bar flyout or on the
"Wires" pulldown and window select the whole drawing. These non-inline wire
numbers, that AcadE uses to keep track of the wire number assignment, will
be moved to a separate frozen layer set aside for hidden wire numbers.
D. Wiring Techniques
Use the INS WIRE command. Start at or near a wire connection point. The
command should automatically find and connect to the nearest one. Route out
away from it. If you have to make multiple 90 degree turns for one wire,
route one segment, end the wire, type "C" [space] and the INS WIRE command
will continue on from the end of the last wire segment.
E. Wire Numbering
You want to use in-line wire labels.
1. Select the "Copy Wire Number (in-line)" command from the "Copy Wire
Numbers" toolbar flyout or from the "Wires" pull-down menu. Pick on each
wire at the point where you want the wire number to be located.
2. AutoCAD Electrical will pop in an in-line wire number "place holder"
symbol (you'll probably see the text "wn"). To manually number this wire,
select the "Edit Wire Number" toolbar button. Pick somewhere on the wire
(not on the "wn" label). Then enter type in your wire number assignment (or
hit "Pick" to pick a nearby wire number that is "close" to what you want and
then edit). Make sure you leave the "Fixed" toggle "ON". Hit OK. The in-line
wire label gap should expand and show your wire number. If another copy of
the wire number appears over the wire, then make sure you have "frozen"
layer WIREFIXED.
3. Automating wire number generation - you may be able to create a utility
to automatically generate all or part of a wire number. For example, your
practice might be to build the wire number assignment by merging the from
and to plug/jack number and pin number plus wire gauge and signal type into
a long wire number string. A sample AutoLisp utility that does much of this
is shown in the Electrical Help ' API ' Section C ' wd_get_wire_netlst
section. Edit this utility if it can be made to suit your needs. A different
practice might be to group wire numbers by "system" or "harness". You might
be able to use AcadE's API to construct a utility to automatically search
and find the next available wire number sequence based upon a target system
or harness. There is currently not an example of such a program in the help.
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