Network symbols for AutoCAD Electrical?

[snorcisa7FS8E]

Probably a long shot, but does anybody know of a source for basic network symbold for use with AE?

Like monitors, printers, network switch etc?

[testsubject]

I would draw them like I draw any other symbol.

Here are a couple of examples that I use.

One is an 8 port switch and the other is a Panelview HMI.

[snorcisa7FS8E]

I don't mean schematic symbols, I'm looking for symbols for in a network layout diagram. Something less involved than a picture but kinda physical.

[jseefdrumr]

I use footprint symbols to create my network drawings. I feel like this approach is best, considering the lack of any sort of established library for these and the fact that you never know who's going to be using that drawing in the future....that person might know nothing about networking.

See the attached image, it's a plot preview of one of my network drawings. These symbols are 'dumb' and aren't connected in any way to the schematics or the panel layout. Whenever I can, I plot them out screened, so they appear grey, this is to help the lines depicting the Ethernet cables to pop out more. As for those lines, they are all polylines, just a little extra insurance to keep ACADE from thinking they're wires and putting numbers on them. The symbols are all scaled down by a ridiculous amount so everything fits on an 11x17 plot.

In addition, you'll see that some of the corners on the Ethernet cables are right angles while some are radiused (filleted). The difference is topology: if a device is part of a DLR (Device Level Ring), then I fillet all the corners. Star topology gets right-angle corners. (If we ever use a different topology I guess I'll have to think something else up....one of the problems to deal with when there's no real standard to go by.)

When I draw these, I make every effort to accurately show which ports on the switch the connections are made on, even though this rarely matters. The reason is so we can have a meaningful name for the cables. For star topologies, we name the cables as ENET and add the number of the switch's port they're plugged in to. For ring topologies, we name the cables DLR, and number them sequentially starting at the first one in the ring.

In these examples, annotations are limited to the device tag, device location, and IP address. Sometimes I have to include more; it depends on what the customer is wanting, and/or how we have to integrate into an existing plant network. Both examples are for single machines.

The second example is basically the same as the first but with a larger network with multiple DLR's.

Edit: forgot to attach files

Hope this helps,

[testsubject]

Jim,

I haven't done this but have you thought of using 1-line symbols for the network page? you can then have an association between the components....

I don't worry about "wire numbering" cables because they go on a "No Numbers" wiring layer.

[jseefdrumr]

I never really thought of that...but also, we don't have a need to maintain an association between the network layout and the schematics. For us, these are really Vanilla drawings, done in ACADE. That's definitely an option to explore, though. Thanks!

[fredolin_felix]

Hi Jim,

very good work! I am wondering if you could share the AutoCAD files for such a project? Sorry I am new to AutoCAD and those example Projects would be very helpful. Thanks in advance

[jseefdrumr]

Sorry, but I moved on from the job where I created those drawings and no longer have access to them.

[oyvindgrodal]

Hi,
Came over this searching for network connection blocks (RJ45).
Possible to download these symbols of yours somewhere?
Would be great to get other symbols like HDMI, USB, DP etc. also 🙂

Thanks in adnavce!

[rhesusminus]

Hei Øyvind.

If you just want the symbol as a block, you should search the internet. You can find some here for example:

https://www.cadforum.cz/catalog_en

You have to register to download. Some symbols are 3D only, but it's easy to create a 2D drawing of them using the FLATSHOT command.