CONDUIT REPORTS

[ksaxena]

I want to have conduits placed in my Cabinet. For this, I went through one of the former posts by Mr. Doug who had instructed that be added through Insert Icon Menu and Din Rail, as they had 3 varities of Panduit. But now I am unable to add wires passing through this conduit. Am I doing this wrong.

Also I want the length of wires running through a conduit to be dispalyed through a conduit report, but when I followed the AutoCAD Electrical 2011 Help section, I was unable to get it done. I have already made the schematic drawing and laid out the special symbols that i created for my panel layout. Nothing seems to work?

Please help!

[dougmcalexander]

Don't confuse conduit with wiring duct.  The conduit markers can be inserted and attached to any plain rectangle that represents a wire duct.  The conduit markers can also be attached to a plain graphical element that represents conduit (metal piping) that connects between panels.  In fact, a conduit marker can provide an intelligent call-out for most any non-intelligent graphical element that you wish to mark as a device that creates a protective path for wires.  Ironically, a conduit marker cannot be attached to a wire duct that is inserted via the Panel Layout>Icon Menu>DIN Rail menu.  These are dynamically generated wire ducts (a.k.a. wireways) that can carry BOM data and a description, but no wire data.

It seems that the most appropriate method for you may be to insert "dumb" rectangles to represent the wire duct and then attach a conduit marker to it so you can assign BOM data and wire data.  For version 2011, go to the Panel Layout menu tab and turn on the Conduit Tools panel.  (see attached screen capture)

[ksaxena]

Thank you! I just wanted to clarify that I want to place panduits inside the cabinet and run wires through them from one device to another. I also want to calculate the length of each individual wire. What should be done.

[dougmcalexander]

I would suggest just drawing a plain rectangle to represent the wire duct and insert a conduit marker to assign the tag, MFG, CAT, etc.  There is no automated length calculation utility within Electrical.  Electrical hands-off to the 3D modeler, Inventor Professional, to create 3D panel layouts with exact wire lengths.  There is an optional field named CLEN (calculated length) that you can add to a From/To report and enter wire lengths from your prototype build.  You click Edit Mode to enter lengths into this field.  Of course you can estimate the length orthogonally if your panel layout is drawn at full scale..  The 3D modeler is the best way to get lengths prior to a prototype build.