Fuse and fuse-holder

[DWhiteley]

I wish to add a fuseholder and a fuse to a schematic.

The fuse holder is easy, but how would i add a fuse of a particular rating to this (a bit like a sub-assembly or parent/child I suppose)?

Both parts would have to come up in the BOM.

Thanks,

Dave W

[james_moore]

Yep, for any RATINGs to apply, they must be entered in the TEXTVALUE field, and they only apply when you are selecting the "master" part. So, this is where using a combination of ASSYCODE and multiple catalog comes in. For instance, you set a combination of fuse holder & fuse for a 2A fuse. If you need more than one of these to allow you to have different combinations of other parts you'll include using multiple catalog, you'll need separate records with unique ASSYCODEs for each unique combination of parts.

[james_moore]

I would want every fuse holder to have the same item#, but what we have is every fuse holder and fuse size combo ends up as an assembly "item."  So if I have 5 of the exact same combination of parts, that's five "items", even though the fuse holder may appear as multiple items... because it's an assembly, not a "part."

[testsubject]

That is what I do not like about using assembly codes.

[rhesusminus]

And this is exactly why I use a different software. The AcadE way just doesn't make sense.

This topic appears every now and then on these forums (video):

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-electrical-forum/how-to-inset-2p-or-3p-fuse-switch-footprint/...

[james_moore]

Whether or not it makes sense depends on your engineering environment and standards.  It works for us. 😉

I don't always like the way things are either, but I appreciate the open-ended nature of the overall system.  IMHO, one key to success with ACE is learning to follow the system before forcing the system to work the way you want it to.

I've seen it commented elsewhere that "AutoCAD Electrical is designed for drafters, not engineers."  I disagree...  It is a garbage-in, garbage-out tool, designed for on-the-fly database-based engineering.  It's complexity is it's strength and it's weakness at the same time.

[rhesusminus]

@james_moore Stockholm syndrome 😉

[james_moore]

lol, I'm just not into starting over after 30 years experience.

I believe every product has limitations once the "herded cats" get their hands on it.  It's always "ooo, ahh! I could never do that before!" followed by "why can't I do this like I want to?"

One big one for me (maybe EPLAN is no longer like this, I'm sure you'll correct me if so...) is dependence on the manufacturer of the software for my data library.  I design custom footprint blocks and schematic symbols around my company's drafting & design standards, and my part catalog data is often appended or modified with new parts.  My ability to add these things without whining to a software developer somewhere and waiting on them is very important to me.  We don't use Siemens, we use Allen-Bradley.  We don't use much Phoenix.  We use SmartScan and Fortress safety devices. We use some IDEC relays.  Aside from A-B, we don't find these parts in the ACE library, but I normally can add a part in minutes.  Even the A-B parts and Hoffman parts that are well represented, we have modified so we get what we want on our designs efficiently without a lot of post-insert adjustment.

If by stockholm syndrome you mean I have too much invested in AutoCAD to start over either talking engineers into modifying department's practices and standards, or tweaking a new package to suit said engineers, managers, assemblers & wiremen, purchasing department people, & device/wire tagging practices, you are correct sir. 😉

[dougmcalexander]

Add the attributes MFG01 and CAT01 as visible attributes to your fuse symbol.  As Bob Hanrahan explained earlier in this thread, key into the TEXTVALUE field in the Catalog Database record for each part the text string to enter the manufacturer name into the value of the MFG01 attribute followed by a semicolon and the part number into the value of the CAT01 attribute.  For example, MFG01=Bussman;CAT01=BC6031B.

[rhesusminus]

I'd really like for you to have a look at what the "dark side" offers @james_moore

Let's do a short Teams-meeting some day!

I totally get what you mean with the time and efforts you have invested, but aren't you just a little curious about what the red pill tastes like? Or maybe scared 😉 ?

[mackenzie_smith7CP82]

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