Hello, Ihave just installed autocad electrical 2011. The first week I had it, it worked great. No problems whatsoever, but when I came into work this week and tried to add a new ladder a prompt came up that said I needed to add special block WD_M. I have searched the forum, and apparently this has happened before, but after I repaired the install, I encountered the same problem. My software is up to date, and all patches have been installed. Thanks in advance, -Nick
It sounds to me like you are starting each new drawing from a dumb template. If this is the case, the WD_M block must be added each time you invoke an AutoCAD Electrical command. The WD_M block is located in the symbol library folder. It is best to create a drawing template with the WD_M block preloaded. This block stores the Drawing Properties.
Thank you. Any special way to start a new drawing with it preloaded other than what I have been doing?(file>new drawing)
You are trying to use a standard AutoCAD approach. AutoCAD is only the drafting engine for Electrical, formerly an add-in program named "Wiring Diagram" or WD for short. WD/Electrical has a project manager that is specially designed to manage electrical schematics. You should create one drawing with the WD_M block inserted, and perhaps add some wire types. Click drawing properties and set your preferences. If you installed JIC format as your default, the default drawing properties match the most popular industry standards. Save this file as a template (.DWT) file. The next time you wish to start a new electrical drawing, click New Drawing from within the Electrical Project Manager and in line two browse to your newly saved electrical drawing template.
Bonus: If you want the automatic title block update feature to work, you should also consider using the title block setup utility to map the title block information from the project description lines to appropriate attributes in your title block. This can be tricky to set up but worth it. I have a quickie step-by-step tutorial on the tips and tricks page of my web site that shows how to set up a template drawing with the proper attribute mapping for title block updates. Go to www.ecadconsultant.com.
You really should attend a classroom training course. There is so much power with this tool but you can also mess up if you don't use it correctly. Don't be fooled by any previous experience you have with plain AutoCAD. Electrical is a wiring diagram application that uses the AutoCAD drafting engine. You need to learn the Electrical portion of the software, which is the dominant portion. It was much easier for us in the past to realize we needed training on WD because WD was an add-in to our existing AutoCAD. We realized that, while we may know AutoCAD quite well, we did not know this new program that we installed into our AutoCAD, so we would attend a training class with an experienced instructor.
Thank you. I willl try this ight now. I am scheduled to attend an electrical autocad class beginning of the year, so hopefully these problems will be a thing of the past.
If you feel that you need training before January, I offer onsite training. I teach from the perspective of a user and we start from scratch.