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Wblocked Vs Circuit builder

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kenaslan
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Wblocked Vs Circuit builder

Does anyone know what the difference between the two are?
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dougmcalexander
in reply to: kenaslan

AutoCAD Electrical has always had to ability to save circuits as a WBlock. There is a helpful tool under the Circuit Builder icon fly-out that allows you to save your favorite circuits to the icon menu. Other competitive Electrical CADD programs call these circuits Macros. Once inserted in a drawing the component tags automatically update to match the drawing settings as prescribed in the Drawing Properties. Note: Components whose tag is set to fixed will not automatically update, and terminal blocks will not update unless they are from the category that uses the wire number as the identifier.

Circuit Builder is a different approach. Circuit Builder works from predefined WBlocks as well. There are a number of these that ship with the program in each library (i.e. JIC1, JIC125, IEC2, IEC4, etc.) folder. These drawing files contain markers that denote the location where components will be inserted, according to specifications you define in the Circuit Configuration dialog. The pre-installed circuits that ship with the program are for 3-phase motor circuits but of course you can create more for other types of circuits by editing the ace_circuit_builder.xls, the MCC.mdb files and creating new templates in the library folder. The template files are easily identified becasue the begin with ace_cb1 or ace_cb2. When using the circuit builder you will notice that the data fields contain drop-down boxes that allow you to choose appropriate parameters like HP, RPM, etc. and the circuit builder will automatically calculate full load amps, and wire size. These values are driven from the spreadsheet and MCC database. Of course this can be adjusted if you feel you need to.

To be perfectly honest, I find the WBlock method to be very satisfactory but if you take the time to learn the Circuit Builder you may be amazed by its automation. Edited by: dougmcalexander on Nov 25, 2008 2:07 AM


Doug McAlexander


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