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add wire information to footprints

7 REPLIES 7
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Message 1 of 8
ksaxena
567 Views, 7 Replies

add wire information to footprints

I am trying to make a wiring diagram out of my control schematic drawing in Autocad Electrical 2011. When it comes to usual symbols, I get the correct information I want to be displayed, but when it comes to Terminals, it gets wrong.

 

I want that 2 wires be displayed on left side of the block and 2 on the right side, but using wire annotation command, all this information is put up in just the right side of the block. I also went back to schematic and edited my terminal to add wirlayers from block properties. Also, I tried to follow help section, but I am not getting a result. Can anyone help.

 

Thanks,

7 REPLIES 7
Message 2 of 8
OlegPuzankin
in reply to: ksaxena

When you use wire annotation option for annotate a panel block, footprint block should contain tags ''wirenol'' and ''wirenor'' in places where they should be shown.

Message 3 of 8
ksaxena
in reply to: OlegPuzankin

Sir,

 

Thanks for your time. I tried to add these as attributes to the symbol but still I am not getting the desired result. The annotation is still all on RHS.

Message 4 of 8
Icemanau
in reply to: ksaxena

You have to tell ACADE which side of the terminal you want the wire. There is a toolbar called ACE: Terminal Direction that allows you to do this.

 

The two choices are Internal and External.

 

Internal refers to the RIGHT side and External refers to the LEFT side when looking at a vertical terminal strip.

You may also want to make sure the wire sequence is set before doing a terminal strip edit....

 

Regards Brad



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

Message 5 of 8

I tried "ACE: Terminal Direction" toolbar to associate external/internal directions to connection points on the terminal schematic symbol.  That seems to have no effect when using standard "Wire Annotation" : One of the four destinations is put to the left while the three others are put to the right, despite the fact that when we regenerate the terminal strip with AETSE, the directions are shown correctly.

 

It seems that direction data has to be put on the panel terminal footprint, instead of the schematic... when doing that, Wiring Annotation command succeeds and places two of four destinations on the left !

 

That seems mysterious, because according to ACADE support and help, left is supposed to imply "internal" and right, "external"... but ACADE need to be told that explicitly !

 

When we associate internal/external value to a panel terminal side, ACADE will put the letter " e " or " i " in the TERMDESCx attribute (TERMDESCL / TERMDESCR).

 

So we have a clue to try to correct this problem... we could put " E " and " i " values in TERMDESCx attributes of each panel terminal footprint in the LIBS / PANEL / mfg directory... but the problem is that the terminal strip editor will clear these attributes when inserting the footprints...

 

QUESTION : is there a way to predefine TERMDESCx values, by the way of the catalog database, or anything else ?

Message 6 of 8

I've had lots of trouble with the TSE adding wires to the terminals, swapping I/E wires and so on when I go back into a terminal strip to edit things after a schematic change.

 

Best way I've found that works in 2008 is to totally remove the terminal strip from the layout, do a total rebuild of the project and then go to the TSE to insert a whole new terminal strip. I've also had to set completed schematic dwgs Read Only in some instances to stop the TSE making changes to any wire sequences and Internal/External settings.

 

The TSE seems to add multiple Direct-To Terminal sequences into an established wire sequence and sometimes ignores the internal/external settings of the terminals themselves whenever you try to edit an existing terminal strip.

 

I mixed the Internal/External side up in my first post as well.... Sorry for that confusion.

 

Regards Brad



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

Message 7 of 8

I'm not sure about the effect of making drawings read-only, especially when using terminals with levels... because if we associate two schematic terminal, ACADE will not be able to, as u said, write data to schematic... this data can help to restore association data if database is lost...

 

but i suppose that read-only should be applied almost at the end, when association values are definitive.

 

About Internal/External, why did Autodesk not choosed to simply use "left" and "right" ?  This naming convention is more complicated than necessary 😉 

Message 8 of 8
dougmcalexander
in reply to: ksaxena

I agree about the Internal/Left and External/Right issue.  When I teach TSE I tell everyone to just refer to the arrows and consider that the left-pointing arrow means to move a wire to the left side of the strip and right means to move a wire from the left side to the right side.  The terminal strips for most of the cabinets I have designed over the years are inserted horizontally, so after I assemble to the strip with TSE, I insert at a 90 degree angle.  If the strip is inserted into the bottom of the panel with field wires entering from the bottom, I will place my Internal wires on the left side of the strip in the TSE dialog.  So as for Internal and External, that depends upon whether my field wires are entering from the top of the cabinet or the bottom.  I never mark wires on a terminal as Internal or External in the schematic.  It's easier to assign this in TSE, because it is more visual and I can move many wires at once.  And the Internal or External assignment in the schematic can be misleading when you realize that E could actually end up being on the left/top side, if the strip is inserted into the top of a cabinet horizontallly, and the field wires will enter from the top.  So I like to teach everyone to just think of Internal as Left/Top and External as Right/Bottom.  (see attached screen capture from TSE)

 

I use TSE exclusively now.  I don't even suggest assigning MFG or CAT in the schematic.  I also don't assign block properties in the schematic, and I certainly do not assign Internal or External in the schematic.  All of those can be done so much quicker with Terminal Strip Editor, and TSE will back-annotate the schematic anyway.  The way I teach TSE in my classes is by pretending we don't know which brand or style of block we will use yet.  So we lay out our schematic with terminal symbols that have only a strip ID and terminal number.  We then get to the panel and decide on a brand and form-factor.  That's where I introduce triple deck blocks and how to convert from single level to triple, adding our accessories, like end plates, end stops, etc.

 

TSE is one of my favorite features in Electrical, and my hat goes off to the team that developed it.  I admit that it is a greatly misunderstood tool.  It takes a bit of practice to master it and is not one of those features that is easy to master without some hands-on training.



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




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