Import Material to Autocad Catalog

[Anonymous]

Hello Forum,

I am new to AutoCad and I have heard that it can be  useful with generating your Bill of Materials. However I cannot find a way to input the parts that we actually use into the system. Is there a way to import something like an excel sheet with all of the materials that we buy? Also how is there a way to tie a product that is in your drawing to a part in that catalog? 

Thank you for your help!

[TRLitsey · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

You have some home work ahead of you.

You can open and edit the database but I would warn that you be very careful.  The database has very specific rules and will not play nicely if you don't know the rules.  Use this forum or the Help button in ACE and be ready for a couple of days reading and taking notes.  This is a ACE version of Access, which is to say it is easy to edit and also very easy to break.  Be afraid, be very very afraid before you dive into that rabbit hole.

When you insert a component weather schematic or panel you will have the chance to open the database and assign mfg. information to that specific symbol.  Use wild cards for search, when you first open the Catalog it may look blank, type something like AB* in the search and watch what happens.

Good luck, and do your home work

[jseefdrumr]

To back up TRLitsey, and to expand on what he said:

If you're new to ACAD Electrical (aka ACADE), then I highly recommend that you DO NOT try to edit the catalog info directly, without using the tools provided by ACADE. As Litsey said, there are some rules. Essentially, there is a very strict hierarchy to follow as far as how tables and things are named. If everything isn't exactly perfect, ACADE won't be able to use the info. It could even break the catalog.

Also, the catalogs are either Microsoft Access (.mdb) or SQL (.sql). In order to get information into them from Excel, you would have some hoops to jump through. ACADE doesn't have those hoops, so you'd have to do it externally, which as stated is very-not-recommended.

In order to do it through Access, you would need to be very proficient with that software, and more proficient with ACADE than you probably are now.

Therefore, understand that ACADE supplies an interface for catalog editing. Litsey showed you the two easiest ways to get to the catalog info. This is how you should do it. It's time consuming, but that's the workflow. Just enter the items you use one at a time, through the channels Litsey showed you. Eventually, all that stuff will get in there. Plus, along the way, you'll begin to become more familiar with the catalog and all of its pitfalls.

Hope this helps,
Jim

[Icemanau]

Just be aware that there are a lot of products already in the catalogue database and if you get an error saying that the product already exists when you try to add it, then this is the reason.

As part of the install, you can choose from a list of manufacturers to be added to the database, However, if they are not selected, they WON'T be added.

If a brand you normally use is not in the catalogue, get your IT (or whoever installed ACADE) to check the available manufacturers in the install and add them if they are available. This may automatically add the products you are after.

One thing to note is that the catalogue is not ALL of the manufacturers products, just the most common at the time the catalogue data was gathered. This means that new products may not be listed for certain manufacturers as the data may not have been updated.

Regards Brad