Creating Parent/Child components.

[Saclark3]

Hey,

I'm trying a create a custom flex cable component.  I have made the parent and child components in the Symbol Builder, and it's possible to place them one by one into the drawing and individually point each child component to the parent component.  When I use other components, I can place the parent, then a dialog box will pop up asking me if I want to insert some child components.  Furthermore, I can use the Multiple-Insert tool to insert a parent and its children all at once.

How do I get my component to do this?

Thanks,

Stephen

[PatMurnen_Adsk · Accepted solution]

The type of behavior you are looking for is likely triggered by the symbol name. Did you follow the symbol naming convention for cable marker symbols?

http://help.autodesk.com/view/ACAD_E/2016/ENU/?guid=GUID-426D2FCD-D82A-4FB7-A657-28D8B2EC336D

Here is a little bit about cable markers pulled from the Help topic  -

AutoCAD Electrical cable conductor marker symbols follow this convention:

• The first character is "H" or "V" for horizontal wire or vertical wire insertion.
• The next two characters are "W0." A zero (0) means that the symbol does not trigger a wire number change through it.
• The fourth character is either 1 or 2: "1" for parent marker or "2" for child marker.
• The remaining characters are not specified.

So you could name your parent HW01-FLEX and child HW02-FLEX or something like that and see if it works. If that isn't it I can do a little more digging to see what triggers this for cable markers.

Regards,

Pat Murnen

[Saclark3]

That works perfectly! Thank you!

[PatMurnen_Adsk]

Glad that worked. 

Regards,

Pat

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I am also trying to do the same thing although this doesn't seem to trigger the prompt for the child component for me. When I create the child component, I set it as horizontal child (as I have a horizontal parent) and change anything I need changed. Once I go to insert the component, it only gives me the parent Insert / Edit Component dialog box and not the child version. I am using the symbol naming convention.

Let me know what I am doing wrong.

Thanks,

Kaylee

[PatMurnen_Adsk]

Hi Kaylee,

can you attach your symbols to a reply and I can take a look at them? You might need to zip them to attach them.

Regards,

Pat Murnen

[Anonymous]

It said .zip & .dwg files were not supported so I have added a google drive link to the file here. 

[PatMurnen_Adsk]

I believe that the only component type that bring up the "insert some child components" dialog are parent cable markers. There may be other families but I would have to try them, but for sure the generic family of DV which your symbols are using would not. DV would be treated like a parent pushbutton or relay. If you had symbols using cable marker names, such as HW01_* as the parent and HW02_* for the children I think it would bring up the dialog box. But, if they aren't meant to be cable markers then I would leave them as DV and have them act as other main components do.

I am talking about this dialog box -

[sarjerao.desai]

I have similar question for Relay component.

Can we create one component for above 3 symbols included ? 
If I drag Coil(master) in the circuit it will pop up for 'insert come child' NO and NC contacts.

[PatMurnen_Adsk]

Hi, AutoCAD Electrical doesn't support dragging a parent to insert the children. You can add an option to the icon menu to add a 3-pole relay component that is built on-the-fly. It would work like the existing 3-pole components like circuit breakers or fuses. You would define the 3 symbols names for the 3 components.

You would do the following:

1. Start the Icon Menu Wizard from the Schematic tab >  Other Tools panel.

2. Select which menu.

3. Navigate to the page you want to add the command to.

4. Click Add > Command in upper right.

5. Enter a name and image file or Active to use screen capture.

6. Click List button next to Command edit box.

7. Select WD_3UNIT and click OK.

8. Edit the command to enter the 3 symbol names in order of insertion. Using quote marks around each name. 

For example, WD_3UNIT "VCR1" "VCR21" "VCR22"

9. OK out of all dialogs and try it.

Regards,

Pat Murnen