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Electrical Panel Schedule Circuit Sorting

4 REPLIES 4
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Message 1 of 5
jonb42
3400 Views, 4 Replies

Electrical Panel Schedule Circuit Sorting

I am inserting a panel schedule to display circuits I have set up for my building panels. I can choose "Panel" style in which case I get single line per breaker - even when the breakers are multi pole - and the circuits sort down by circuit number as I would expect ie 2-pole breaker 1,3 is first then 2,4 / 5,7 / 6,8 / 9,11 / 12 / 13 / 14... you can see that is 5x 2-pole breakers at the top of the panel then moving on to single poles.

 

So that is kind of ok - except I would like my panel schedule to display as in the "real world" where a 2-pole breaker takes 2x slots (spaces). The option for "show each slot as a separate row" is greyed out for the panel style "Panel" however it is greyed ON for the tool "3-Phase Branch Panel" or "1-Phase Branch Panel" and indeed I can make a schedule using these tools - the only problem is that the breaker positions are all mixed up. Not even the "odds on left evens on right" rule is obeyed let alone the "circuits count down from the top" rule.

 

I have searched the web and forums extensively and found nothing so far. Perhaps something is messed up with my drawing file and normally people don't encounter this...?

 

I found one reference to checking under "stylemanager > documentation > schedule table styles" and editing sort orders there - however I find no panel schedules there whatsoever. Looks like electrical panel schedules don't have styles even though you pick a "style" when inserting one. I've read the Adesk 2009 white paper on editing tables; it only informs how to change the look of tables rather than any kind of sorting.

 

Attached you see a panel where the style is what I want (2-pole breakers take 2 spaces) but the sorting is messed up.

 

Any help with this would be appreciated!

 

thanks

Jon

 

 

4 REPLIES 4
Message 2 of 5
VitalyF
in reply to: jonb42

Hi,

 

What standard you have assigned to the panel, ISO or ANSI?

ISO standard has more options for customizing

Here is an example of my electrical project with ISO standard panels

Complete Project

 

 

Vitaly

Message 3 of 5
jonb42
in reply to: VitalyF

Vitaly,

 

thanks for the response. I looked over your project but was more than a little hampered by the language 🙂 Thanks for sharing though.

 

In tried ISO vs ANSI however that did not turn out to be the root of the problem. I did see how one could change the phase of a circuit but that did not fix the sorting problems.

 

I did manage to fix my problem last night after some more beating my head against the wall stuff... I must have made a panel schedule while the numbering (under electrical preferences > circuiting) was set to "increase by number of poles". After one panel of this style was placed all other panels inherited these numbering properties even though I tried the other two options ("use sequential numbers" and "group using number of poles") This lead me to the erroneous conclusion that the numbering scheme did not affect the panel schedules. Finally I tried my magic on a new drawing and got the behaviour I wanted with the numbering scheme "group using number of poles" finding this worked I went back to my real drawing, deleted all panel schedules, saved the drawing, made new schedules and lo and behold they were correct!

 

Conclusions (useful things I have learned).

 

1) get a multi pole breaker to use multiple "slots" in a panel schedule by using either "1-phase branch panel" or "3-phase branch panel" schedule styles (default MEP pallette).

 

2) get multiple pole breakers to show as one line in a panel schedule (which I don't personally like) by using the "Panel" schedule style

 

3) if a panel schedule tool does not work - for instance you click on it but never get a schedule - you may need to purge > table styles. I found a table style that was conflicting with the panel tool - it was a panel schedule I had cut and pasted from another older drawing.

 

4) electrical preferences > circuiting > numbering DOES affect panel schedules. However a panel's numbering scheme will remain in place even though you change the electrical prefs numbering scheme UNTIL you delete all those schedules and save the drawing.

 

5) If you create panel circuits (under circuit manager) under one numbering scheme then create a panel schedule using a different one you will get unpredicable results like circuit numbers in completely meaningless places. (See (4) to fix) Now I know I like the results "group using number of poles" gives I will be sticking with it the whole way through 🙂

 

6) under circuit manager the "name" (which is what I would call circuit number) acts as the index key to a spreadsheet - the circuits are sorted by "name". If you name a circuit "A-1" then it will move to the top of "A-2" and "A-3". Therefore the name determines the phase. A circuit that was named A-3 will end up as phase A (left side) slot 2 in a standard (american anyway!) panel - given that all the other circuits are named with the same A-# convention. (You could just use numbers but I am using A to represent panel A). If you want to move your 2-pole well circuit to the bottom left of the panel (because someone cut the wires too short, heaven forbid) just name it A-39,41. Multi pole circuits automatically created at the same time as single poles will be assigned to the top of the panel BUT you can easily move them down by renaming... Just remember to delete the appropriate single pole circuits (slots you are moving TO) - or rename THEM to move them to where the multi pole came from.

 

I hope these things help someone 🙂

 

JB

 

Message 4 of 5
MuirEng
in reply to: jonb42

Hi,

Sorry I didn't see your post until just now. I reached similar conclusions by banging my head on this stuff late last year! 

I have similar looking PB schedules to yours. However, I recommend not to name circuits with the panel names as a prefix. I simply name my circuits 1,2,3,4,5,... and have an aggregate tag that prefixes the panel name in plan. This cleans the PB schedule up a bit especially if you have a long panel name.

 

electrical preference menu set as follows:

  require unique name: unchecked

  prefix: none

  numbering: group using number of poles

 

The circuit to phase allocations match north american panel board layouts (e.g. One phase panels will see odd circuits on phase A, left side, and even on phase B, right). Three phase panels behave as well.

 

 

Brian

 

Brian Muir, P.Eng, Muir Engineering
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Thanks!
Message 5 of 5
jtm2020hyo
in reply to: VitalyF

 
Good day VitalyF
 

 

Do you could share your complete project again ?

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