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

Comments

[Sergey]

If the electric component is an assembly, such as a circuit breaker and auxiliary contact. How this assembly in Electrical can be associated with the assembly in Inventor?