AutoCAD electrical is amazing software! It can create intelligent drawings and manage component data with ease, saving a user many unnecessary tasks (as well as time)! However, a new ACADE user can easily be overwhelmed with the many options in the “schematic” ribbon when starting out.
I have trained many new users, who when seeing the array of icons and commands above, will want to jump back to the old reliable “home” tab. Proper wiring diagram generation requires the use of schematic specific commands to effectively create an intelligent drawing and viable database.
A bit of coaching and reassurance is usually enough to get most new users comfortable with the new working environment. The basic functionality of the schematic menu will get most people working with improved speed and accuracy over vanilla AutoCAD.
As a software user builds their confidence with the software, they will begin to try to get faster and more efficient, as it is human nature to try and improve your skills and abilities. Very often the first exposure to ACADE is when a company rolls it out for the first time as a new application, with the goal to clean up poor drawings and fix bad drawing habits. Management effectively sees an improved product (cleaner drawings) and some time savings right away. Too often, they do not really push to train users for much deeper training than is necessary to initially learn the software. This leads to ACADE users, not going beyond the core functionalities of the software.
One of the basic tasks in ACADE is inserting components into a schematic. The software has a very functional way to do this, as shown below. Notice the push-button in the “recently used” field. Components which have been used since opening the drawing editing session will be listed here. A big time saver is selecting a component from the list of previously used devices rather than going through the menus to select a component. This may seem intuitive, however is very frequently overlooked when the user has been adding many components to a schematic. As the list of devices here expands, it becomes a great shortcut to use, even though it may become very long after an extended drawing session.
The menu shown above is default for inserting a component into a schematic with the "icon menu" option. The user can put any component from the menu into the schematic from here. However, when doing so, the dialog box will often have many options to specify with the component insertion. When inserting one device, this is an acceptable practice. What if you have a reason to put ten buttons in a row in a schematic, and would like to save time?
The push-button on line H105 in the screen shot below, has valid part data attached to it. My task is to populate additional wires with the same component and part data. I also have a manager telling me to get this done, as there is more work to do, so I need to be efficient about it.
The related part data is verified in the dialog box below.
If I select the “multiple insert (pick master)” option from the menu as shown below, instead of just selecting the icon menu, I can select a master (source) component to populate additional wires. This will cause the same component part data to be tied to each newly inserted component, saving many steps!
Note in the screen shot below, there are several wires without devices.
My task is to add a Push-button , with related data, to each wire. After initiating the command, the following will be seen, you are being asked to select the component to copy (see below).
The command line is important! Always check here to see what is needed!
After selecting the Push-button as your component, you will be asked to specify a “component fence, from point”. I have chosen the top wire, left end to begin my task. Note that the fence crosses over both ends of the wire! This will populate both wire ends with the same Push-button and associated data.
After selecting the points shown you will see the dialog box shown. Note the options that I have selected! They are not necessarily the default choices, and must be set this way to eliminate seeing the dialog box for each insert. The highlighted Push-button has been selected to populate the wires.
After insertion of the devices, you will have the following. All devices properly placed and include the correct data. From this circuit, you can extract BOM information on each PB for your MRP system! You just saved a lot of time and should now go get a coffee as a reward!
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