Working with panel components
My $.02: Every person thinks that another person's drawing can be improved, simply because that person did things differently. That doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with a drawing, it just means it could have been drawn differently.
Here's what I think about your drawings.
1. Don't worry about what you see as 'waste'. Paper and ink are cheap, compared to the wages/salaries of the people who will be using these drawings. Crowded drawings are harder to read, and it takes more time to assimilate all the information on there. White space is pretty valuable: it makes the sheet as a whole easier to read (quicker to read, too) while leaving room for the end user to take notes, or mark in some changes. Additionally, that extra white space can come in handy for us techs as well, in the event something gets added to the design. As drawn, your project does fine at this. Combining the layout & schematic would mess that up quite a bit.
It is very typical to see panel drawings and schematics kept separate. Additionally, the BOMs are typically placed on the panel drawings. Normally, panel layouts are drawn at 1:1 scale and this naturally precludes having your schematics on the same sheet, unless you want to scale up all of your symbols and text. Which you would have to do again, if the next panel you draw is too much different in size, one way or another. (In fact, I've never even seen a panel layout and schematic on the same sheet before.)
2. In order to make the DIN rail 'disappear' behind the objects you put on top of it, you'll need to do a couple of things. First, every footprint will need to have a WIPEOUT added to it. Use F1 for more info on that, if this is the first you've heard of it. But essentially, you will create a wipeout in your footprint, and then use DRAWORDER to send the wipeout to the back. (A wipeout hides everything behind it, so the objects you want to see need to be in front of it.) Second, after this footprint is inserted into a drawing, use DRAWORDER on the DIN rail to send it behind the footprint. (If you add wipeouts to footprints that are already in use, you'll need to use the swap/update block command to get the new version into your existing drawing. Simply deleting and re-inserting won't do the trick.)
Many of the out-of-the-box terminal footprints already have wipeouts, but none of the others do. You'll be inserting wipeouts into every footprint you need to use, that isn't a terminal. And probably some terminals too.
3. I think your schematic is just fine, there's only a couple of things I would suggest:
*I would expect to see some sort of notation near your 3-phase CB that tells me what kind of incoming power to expect. Is this 480, 220, or what? Remember that anyone installing or servicing this has to have that knowledge so that they can grab the proper PPE if required.
*Linetypes: you're using the same dashed line to represent field wiring, as you are to depict what looks like a location box. Consider using different linetypes to improve readability. (using dashed lines for field wires is pretty common so I'd look at using something different for location boxes.)
*If I wanted to be reeeeeal picky, I'd point out that you drew your motor circuit as if it's on a horizontal ladder, but your setup uses a vertical ladder. But does that even matter? LOL pffft not at all. The point of any drawing is, can it be read and understood easily? That might sound like a low bar but I argue it's the most important one. And of course you cleared it. (So don't feel like your work isn't good, look how far I had to go to find something to criticize lol.)
In the end, there's only one person who can tell us truly if our drawings are any good: the person who has to use them to do work. Be it an installer, or maintenance person, or even a programmer....whatever. Only those people know if working with our drawings is easy, or hard. If you really want to put out the best drawings, get feedback from those folks as much as you can. Strive for a balance of information that provides enough for people to do their work without retaining unneeded things that just get in the way. When in doubt, create another drawing and open up space.
Good luck and welcome back to ACADE
Jim Seefeldt
Electrical Engineering Technician
My contributions sit atop the shoulders of everyone who has helped me along through the years, lol. We all pay things forward in our own way.
Jim Seefeldt
Electrical Engineering Technician
The best way to add the wipeouts is to edit the base dwgs for the blocks in question and add them there.
But only for the ones you use a lot.
This means that they will be there going forward and as you go forward, the number of times you need to do this will decrease until it's just new blocks as you get them.
For Control Relays, if they are the plug in style, make sure the base is included in the footprint. Same with timers and anything else that plugs in to a base.
Regards Brad
Brad Coleman, Electrical Draftsman
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