AutoCAD Electrical

Resolve Differences between AutoCAD Electrical & Autodesk Inventor Linked Components

In my previous article, Linking Components between AutoCAD Electrical and Autodesk Inventor, I talked about how you can link components between AutoCAD Electrical and Inventor in the Location View. In this blog my focus will be on how you can view component and connectivity differences and resolve them.

Viewing Differences in the Location View

Once the Electrical symbol  and the Inventor part  are lined in the Location View they need to be merged into a single representation. The single representation may be Linked  , or Linked with Differences  depending on whether there is any difference between the properties of the component between Electrical and Inventor. Properties that are compared between Electrical and Inventor are Category, Catalog No, Manufacturer, Assembly Code, Tag, Installation, Location, Tag Strip, Terminal No, Rating 1, 2, Description 1, Description 2, and Description 3. 

If there is a difference between the PINS of the linked components, we do not merge the pins in the grid but keep them in separate rows. However pins with the same name are merged to a single pin.

On linking, the properties that you define in AutoCAD Electrical are compared with the properties defined from Inventor, and the differences are shown in the Location view in the following ways:

On the Component Tree

Use the filter on the top of the Location view to filter the components with a specific status. 

When you hover your cursor over an item in the component tree, the tooltip shows you the summary of differences between the components. 

 

On Component Detail Tab

If the selected component has any differences between properties, you see an indicator on the top of the Component Detail tab. 

The differences are shown with highlighted cells in the grid. Make sure you have turned on all columns so that you do not miss any differences.

On Connection Detail Tab

If the selected component has any differences in the way it is wired, you see an indicator on the top of the Connection Detail tab. 

The connectivity differences are shown highlighted in the Grid. 

Resolving Differences

When resolving differences, keep in mind:

• AutoCAD Electrical will not make changes to your Inventor assembly. So when you resolve differences from within AutoCAD Electrical, you are bringing the Inventor properties to your AutoCAD Electrical drawings.
• Inventor will not make changes to your AutoCAD Electrical drawings. So when you resolve differences from within Inventor, you are bringing the AutoCAD Electrical properties to your assembly.

 

On Component Detail Tab in AutoCAD Electrical

Select one or multiple differences of a single component on the Component detail grid and click Accept Inventor on the right top of the grid. 

By doing that you are approving the design definitions added by the Inventor user and updating the Electrical component definitions. As you click on the accept differences, the standard insert/edit dialog pops up and Inventor properties are prepopulated on the dialog. 

On pressing OK the component gets updated and the component status becomes linked. 

You can also edit the component detail on the drawing and manually change the values of the component to match Inventor properties.   Sync the Location view to update the status of the component to Linked from Linked with differences.

On Connection Detail Tab

There is no automatic method to update differences on this grid. Since it shows the connection differences between Electrical and Inventor, the way to resolve this difference is to manually change connections in the drawings to match Inventor connection definitions. Once you change connections and press save and Refresh, you can view the status change of the component in Location tree.

At any point of time if you want to export the information on the grid in Microsoft Excel format, you can do so using the Export button on the top right of the grid. Once all the components are in Linked state you can use Export to get the consolidated list of components used in Electromechanical Project.

Stay tuned for more articles on the AutoCAD Electrical 2016 release features.

Vikas Vaishnav
 

Related articles

Linking Components between AutoCAD Electrical and Autodesk Inventor

New Electromechanical Link between AutoCAD Electrical and Autodesk Inventor

Project Manager's New Tab

Linking Components between AutoCAD Electrical and Autodesk Inventor

In my previous article, New Electromechanical Link between AutoCAD Electrical and Autodesk Inventor, I talked about how you can link an AutoCAD Electrical project to an Inventor assembly. Once linked, the Location View tab on Project Manager provides a complete view of all the components.

You also see some extra buttons on the Location view:

 Filters the tree view by component link status.
Syncs the drawing tree with the Inventor data. The date and time of the last refresh displays next to the icon.
Opens the Sync Settings dialog box, which allows you to create your synchronization task. You can create synchronization schedule tasks to run at regular intervals. 

And some different icons in front of the components: 

 Indicates an AutoCAD Electrical component not linked to an Inventor component.
 Indicates an Inventor component not linked to an AutoCAD Electrical component.
 Indicates linked AutoCAD Electrical and Inventor components, with no mismatches in data.
 Indicates linked AutoCAD Electrical and Inventor components, but there is some mismatch between the data.
 Indicates an AutoCAD Electrical cable not linked to an Inventor cable. 
 Indicates an Inventor cable not linked to an AutoCAD Electrical cable.
 Indicates linked AutoCAD Electrical and Inventor cables, with no mismatches in data.
 Indicates linked AutoCAD Electrical and Inventor cables, but there is some mismatch between the data. 

Now you are ready to link (match) the Electrical components with Inventor Components. You can do this by:

• Linking an Inventor component to an existing component in an electrical drawing
• Inserting a new electrical component to link to the Inventor component 

Linking an Inventor Component to an Existing Component in an Electrical Drawing. 

Right-click on an Inventor Only component  in the Location View and select Assign to existing in Drawing. 

Select the component you want to link.  Here, I am linking the Battery to an Inventor only component, battery:1.

Once linked, the icon in front of the component changes to a linked icon.  

Inserting a New Electrical Component to Link to the Inventor Component. 

You may also have a lot of components that are in the Inventor assembly but are not yet present in your Electrical Project.  To insert those components as well as link them, right-click on the Inventor only component and select Insert from Catalog Browser. 

From here the catalog browser pops up.  If the Inventor component already has catalog data, the catalog browser will show you the exact search result so that you can straight away insert it in the drawing.

Once you insert the component, the standard Insert/Edit dialog comes up and it has properties pre-populated from the Inventor side. 

By clicking “OK” your insert and link is finished and you can view the change in the component tree in Location view. 

Using either of these methods you can link an Inventor Only component to an Electrical Component.  Once linked, the icon in front of the Inventor Only component changes to a linked icon.  The icon may be Linked , or Linked with Differences .  I will talk about differences and how to resolve them in my next article.

Stay tuned for our following blogs to understand how to resolve differences and to know some Best Practices for EMX.

• EMX: View and resolve differences between linked devices.
• Best Practices for Electromechanical workflow.

Vikas Vaishnav

New Electromechanical Link between AutoCAD Electrical and Autodesk Inventor

AutoCAD Electrical 2016 masters the electromechanical workflow with enhanced information flow between AutoCAD Electrical and Inventor Projects.

You can establish a link between an Electrical Project and Inventor assemblies, and enjoy a seamless information sync between these projects helping the Electrical and Mechanical teams to work on a shared design. This “one design” integrates the logical controls design with the physical model. You are immediately aware of design changes and modifications, reducing costly design errors and facilitating design communication flow right inside the products.

The concept is simple, there is a single file that is accessible by both the Electrical and Inventor users which acts as a bridge for the information to flow between these products. Once the bridge (which is the Electromechanical Link) is set up, Electrical users would be able to see the designs definitions from Inventor and vice versa. This shared information is displayed in the new Location View available in each product.

Creating the electromechanical link (EMX) is simple. All you need is:

• An Active AutoCAD Electrical Project.
• At least one Inventor assembly file.
• Shared folder accessible by both Electrical and Inventor teams.  The EMX file in this shared folder acts as a bridge between two products to exchange information.

Steps to link your project as initiated from AutoCAD Electrical (you can also initiate the process from Autodesk Inventor):

Step 1: Click on the icon as shown below to open the Link setup dialog. 

Ribbon with Electromechanical Tab

On the dialog, you  decide whether to create a new link or connect your project to an existing link. Assuming you wish to create a new link, click Create.

Electromechanical Link Setup before Linking

Step 2:  Enter the name of the link file and shared folder location. 

Create Electromechanical Link Dialog

After filling in the appropriate details, click “Create” and an EMX file is created  in the shared folder.

Step 3: Once you click Create, your Electromechanical Link Setup dialog updates  with more details as shown below.  At any point during the course of the project you can click on the Electromechanical Link Setup icon in the ribbon to access this dialog. 

Electromechanical Link Dialog post linking

Step 4: Now your mechanical team using Autodesk Inventor can open the assembly file you want to link. Click on the similar Electromechanical link setup Icon on the Electromechanical tab on ribbon and you will see the following dialog where you click the browse “Link” icon  to select the EMX file created in Step 2. 

Electromechanical Link Setup Dialog in Inventor

The AutoCAD Electrical project and Inventor assembly  are linked and the information flow (sync) is automatically triggered.

 After linking the projects, the design changes flow between the products. New components, wires, and connection data appear in the Location view tree and their details can be seen in the Component and Connection detail views as shown in image below. 

Location View with Inventor Components

 

In the next blog posting I will cover the basic data transfer workflows and how users interact with the design changes.

• EMX: Linking Components
• EMX: View and resolve differences between linked devices.

 

Vikas Vaishnav

 

Related articles

AutoCAD Electrical 2016 - Awesome

Project Manager's New Tab

AutoCAD 2016 Products

AutoCAD Electrical Connections and Details on Location View Tab

I my previous post, Project Manager's New Tab, I introduced the new Location View tab that is part of AutoCAD Electrical 2016. I showed you that:

• the tree is organized by Installation, Location, and device tag
• you can hover over a device to see some details about that device
• you can right-click a device to surf
• you can filter the list based on Installation and Location

In this post I am going to talk about the Connections and Details tabs available on the Location View tab. Click the Display Details and Connections button.

If this is the first time displaying these tabs you may need to expand the size of the palette.

Click the same button to hide the Details and Connections tabs. Also, if you switch over to the Projects tab to see the list of projects and drawings, the palette reverts automatically to its size for that tab.

There are 2 tabs on this view:

Details. Displays component details in a table format.

Connections. Displays wiring and connection information in a table format.

The basic functionality for each tab is the same; you are just seeing different information. So let's go through the basics for working with the Details and Connections tabs.

Select a node in the tree view to control the amount of information displayed in the table. Here I have selected just the MCAB5 Location within the F1 Installation.

Right-click to surf to a component on the Details tab.

You can also surf to a wire number on the Connections tab.

Highlight any number of cells, right-click and select Copy to copy the data to the clipboard for pasting. In this image, I have selected all the wire numbers so I can copy and then paste them into a drawing or to another program.

Right-click on one of the column labels in the table to select which fields to include from the list of available fields. Select the More option to see all the fields that are available for that table.

You can also change the order of the fields by dragging the column label to the desired position in the table. Here I am dragging the Description 1 column to place it right after the Tag column.

Once you have displayed just the information you want to see, click Export to send the information to a comma-delimited file or an Excel spreadsheet. The data is exported just as it is shown in the table. Here I have just one cable marker selected in the tree view, and I dragged the wire number column right after the "From" fields.

And here is my spreadsheet.

Notice the first column doesn't look quite like the Connections tab. The icon in the tab is "translated" to words for the spreadsheet. This becomes an important column once you start linking your AutoCAD Electrical projects to Inventor assemblies. With this column you will be able to tell which components are Inventor only, AutoCAD Electrical only, or linked.

Which leads us into the next few blog articles about the Location View tab where we talk about how to:

• link AutoCAD Electrical components to parts in an Inventor assembly
• view and resolve differences between linked devices

By Pat Murnen