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Source-destination arrows issues...

17 REPLIES 17
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Message 1 of 18
CAD-ICE
1211 Views, 17 Replies

Source-destination arrows issues...

Hello all!

I have some issues with the XREF on my destination arrows after I added two drawings to my project. For some reason all seems to work fine except that the destination XREF does not update??

If I do a surf on the respective destination arrow, then I can see that the shee,reference is correct?

Anyone have some good ideas to solve this??

I´m using ACADE2012.

One other thing, I use the command AEUPDATESIGREF to update my source/destination arrows project wide...isn´t it the correct command I´m using?

 

Thank´s , Gary

17 REPLIES 17
Message 2 of 18
CAD-ICE
in reply to: CAD-ICE

Hello it´s me again...just wanted to add some details. Our customer has a drawing standard that is based on a  certain tagging system such that a component is tagged according to type of drawing (Section %A), family (%F) and finally line referenc (%N). So a relay in section 4, sheet no. 2 and line reference 6 gets tagged as -4K26.

This is all well, but this system offers that I can have several pages with the same sheet no but different section no. Could that cause some problems with my source/destination references ??

I have attached a dwg where I have inserted one source and one destination arrow. For some reason the xref for the source is showing the correct xref i.e. based on %A%S%N while the destination arrow shows only the page and linereference??

 

Any comments greatly appreciated.

 

Regards, Gary

Message 3 of 18
testsubject
in reply to: CAD-ICE

I think ACE expects that sheet number is unique but it is possible to get around this by incrementing the line number reference between drawings. You will not be able to tell which drawing the item is located on but ACE should be able to differentiate. Looking at your drawing though gives me the impression that you will not be able to do this (you are using x-zone and this is the same line reference from drawing to drawing).

 

I would suggest making you sheet numbers unique. Maybe your customer needs to change his standard to be more in line with industry standards (i.e., IEC). You may have noticed Doug and I have responded about this in the past.

 

Sorry I could not be of more help...



Bob Hanrahan
Ace User since 1998
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Message 4 of 18

Very right Bob! I have worked with the IEC standard since it was first introduced, and DIN before that.  -4K26 would be interpreted by many of my customers as sheet 4, zone 2, 6th relay.  The sheet number often precedes the family type and the exact location on the sheet comes after the family type.  Some customers require us to break with industry standards in order to get their business.  We cannot expect Autodesk to change the software so we can break the standards.  When I must "color outside the lines" I get the customer to sign a waiver, releasing me of any responsibility with regard to the standards, and instead accepting all responsibility themselves for the deviation.  I usually charge extra if the customer's requirements force me to assign data manually, instead of using AutoCAD Electrical's automated functions that are based on published standards.



Doug McAlexander


Design Engineer/Consultant/Instructor/Mentor specializing in AutoCAD Electrical training and implementation support

Phone and Web-based Support Plans Available

Phone: (770) 841-8009

www.linkedin.com/in/doug-mcalexander-1a77623




Please Accept as Solution if I helped you. Likes are also much appreciated.
Message 5 of 18
CAD-ICE
in reply to: dougmcalexander

Hello guy´s and thank´s for the prompt reply.

I was hoping for a different answer but It seems that ACE out of the box is not up to job.

The main problem here is that the customer has his own standard and components are tagged accordingly.

By using Bob´s suggestion creating unique sheet numbers would come into conflict with the component tagging.

In brief, the customer has a drawing standard that is based on sections. Each section has its own no. i.e. for instance 3 phase powersupply gets the section no.1. If a MCB is inserted on page no. 3, line reference 4 in this section 1 it gets tagged as -1K34. I have no experience with script or any specialprogramming...but would it be possible to create some sort of script, lisp or something to get this thing to work?

 

Bob and Dough, thank´s again for your devoted support.

Regards, Gary 

Message 6 of 18
testsubject
in reply to: CAD-ICE

Maybe I am missing something...

 

You talk of Section 1, Sheet 3, and Item 4. Do you have more than one Sheet 3 in your section? If you do then there really isn't much I can do to help you out of the box. I am not that good at lisp (wrote a few small things) and have done plenty of scripting but that really only works with out of the box commands.

 

This does sound similar to the IEC standard of Installation/Location/Component with Location=Section.

 

Now if you have you have more than one sheet 3 but there is a unique one in each section, that we can help with using Super/Sub Projects. Doug has a good writeup on it and has even writen a program that does this. (I think you should start paying me royalties... Smiley Wink)

 

http://www.ecadconsultant.com



Bob Hanrahan
Ace User since 1998
If this answered your question, please click on "Accept Solution"
Message 7 of 18
CAD-ICE
in reply to: testsubject

Hello Bob,

Sorry if I havent been clear enoug in my post.

No, there is only one page/sheet no.1, 2 ...etc.. in each section.

In a standard project for this customer there can be up to 20 sections (chapters) where each chapter is used for certain type of dwg types. Sheet no´s in each section are then numbered 1,2,3 etc.

I hope this helps a little.

Regards, Gary

Message 8 of 18
testsubject
in reply to: CAD-ICE

The next question is how are these .dwgs grouped on your hard drive? Better yet, post a copy of the project's  .wdp file for me to look at.

 

I am still thinking along the lines of Super/Sub Projects to pull this off...



Bob Hanrahan
Ace User since 1998
If this answered your question, please click on "Accept Solution"
Message 9 of 18
CAD-ICE
in reply to: testsubject

Hi again Bob,

attached is the wdp file.

Regards, Gary

Message 10 of 18
testsubject
in reply to: CAD-ICE

Well Gary, I do not see anything too strange with the project as you have it set up. I can see that the Section value (%A) matches the A## part of your drawing number. I am not sure what the Subsection is being used for but it may not be germaine to the discussion.

 

Actually, looking back to the original post, we appear to have gone off on a tangent. This was working fine with the existing drawings of this project; the problem only occured when you added the new drawing, correct?

 

First question, did you change the names of the SigCode values in the destination arrows? If I am copying an existing drawing into a project, I will just delete the destination codes for drawing and insert new ones linking to the previous Source codes on the other page .Keep in mind, although you can have One Source Code and Many Dest Codes, it is not a good practice. You should never have one Dest Code and Many Source Codes. You should rename the Source Codes on the copied drawing to something unique.

 

Let's see where this takes us... Smiley Wink



Bob Hanrahan
Ace User since 1998
If this answered your question, please click on "Accept Solution"
Message 11 of 18
CAD-ICE
in reply to: testsubject

Hi again Bob,

I use the subsection value for the next sheet value also displaye in the customers titleblock so that´s irrelevant to the problem with the signal arrows. The signalcodes were inserted one by one in this project and are not copies from another project so that´s not causing the problem. Everything was actually working fine until I inserted two pages and did an update of signalreference! After I inserted these two pages, the signal reference update does not update although if surfing a corresponding signal arrow, the sheet and linereference are correct but the XREF attribute is not??

The answer to your question, I did not change then names of the signalcodes and the two extra pages being added got fresh unique signalcodes.

For your information I have attached a picture showing a surf window on a destination arrow in my project. The destination arrow is actually placed on sheet 04 in line ref. 0 which is correct. The source arrow sheet, reference in the surf window is shown as 03,9 also correct (sheet no.3 line ref.9) while the XREF attribute on the drawing show´s the old reference i.e. 4.01.9 which means section 4, sheet no.01 and line ref. 9. As you can see there is an offset of 2 pages for some reason??

 

I hope this gives you some clues of what´s causing this...

Regards, Gary 

Message 12 of 18
testsubject
in reply to: CAD-ICE

Gary,
Go ahead and send me and the two new drawings plus the "upstream" and"downstream" drawings so that I can try and duplicate your problem.


Bob Hanrahan
Ace User since 1998
If this answered your question, please click on "Accept Solution"
Message 13 of 18
Icemanau
in reply to: CAD-ICE

Did you go through and update the Sheet numbers or resequence the sheets altogether on the older dwgs?

 

I believe that ACADE uses the Sheet Reference in the dwg properties in the XREF settings. If these are still the old readings, then you will get the result you have.

 

Regards Brad



Icemanau (NNTP handle: Brad Coleman
AutoCAD Electrical User and IT Hardware Support

Message 14 of 18
CAD-ICE
in reply to: testsubject

Hi Bob,

attached are the files requested.

The two new files added are A04_105.dwg & A04_106.dwg. The sequence of these dwgs is as follows:

 

  1. A04_105
  2. A04_106
  3. A04_06
  4. A04_07
  5. A04_08

I hope you figure out some sort of solution for this.

Thank´s again for helping me out.

Regards, Gary

Message 15 of 18
CAD-ICE
in reply to: Icemanau

Hello Brad,

yes we tried everything especially making sure that the sheetnumber sequence was in order.

I also exported all the signalreferences to Excel to make sure that the signalcodes between source and destination arrows are unique which they are.

Thank´s and regards, Gary

 

Message 16 of 18
testsubject
in reply to: CAD-ICE

Gary,

 

This was a real tricky one.

 

It has to do with the Source/Destination .dwgs that you created. There is a funny thing (NOT funny haha) about ACE symbols. The X#TERM## attribute needs to be anchored to a line. The other signal arrow styles (1 to 4) have the X1TERM01 (for example) attached to an already existing line in the symbol. The ones you created (looks like you took signal arrow style 1and just removed the arrows) are missing this line. There needs to be one there and it does not have to be very long. It should go back along the line (so it will not be seen.) After I added it to HA5D3, the symbol worked correctly. I am surprised that this has not come up before. This has been one of those things that have been part of the ACE symbols for a very long time.

 

I must say, this was a real challenge. It took me a lot longer than I expected because I forgot about the X#TERM## "tail" needing to be on the symbol.

 

I tested it with drawing A04_07 and it had no trouble updating A04_06 and back again.

 

I would recommend editing HA5D1 - 4 and HA5S1 - 4 and adding the stub. Then you can use Update/Swap block followed by update signal references to fix all the drawings.

 

Have fun! Smiley LOL



Bob Hanrahan
Ace User since 1998
If this answered your question, please click on "Accept Solution"
Message 17 of 18
CAD-ICE
in reply to: testsubject

HI Bob and thank´s alot for the tip.

How the h... did you figure this one out??

Sorry for not replying earlier...I have been on a short vacation and just managed to check my e-mail.

Thanks again for your devoted support to this forum...you deserve a medal from Autodesk Smiley Happy

Regards, Gary

Message 18 of 18
testsubject
in reply to: CAD-ICE

I came across this years ago and Nate helped me figure it out. It has been so long since I had to deal with it though that I forgot all about it until I was trying to help you...

 

No problem. Me helping you also helps keep me sharp!



Bob Hanrahan
Ace User since 1998
If this answered your question, please click on "Accept Solution"

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