AutoCAD Electrical

AutoCAD Electrical Ideastation

What is it?

Ideastation went online in June 2014 as an initiative to engage & empower the AutoCAD Electrical user community. Users can make the most of this platform by sharing their ideas for new features, or feature enhancements they would like implemented in the product.

How does it work?

You know how it works while posting an idea, but we wanted to tell you a little more about how we process the postings and how seriously we take your ideas. The AutoCAD Electrical Ideastation team gets together and reviews new ideas on a weekly basis. We rely on the number of kudos to initially decide the importance of the idea, i.e. the more kudos received, the more important the idea is for us, because it simply shows that many of you face the same problem. During the reviewing process, we categorize the ideas into these 8 buckets and provide feedback to the user in the form of comments.

An idea could go from one bucket to another. For example, if an idea needs more information, we ask the user for the information we need and place it in 'comments requested'. After receiving appropriate and adequate comments, the idea is pushed into 'under review' or 'future consideration' depending on its implementation feasibility. It could then go to the 'accepted' and lastly 'implemented' bucket. At any particular point in time, the idea will reside in only one bucket.

Up until now…

Since launching the Ideastation in June 2014, we have had over 8000 unique visitors and 258 ideas posted by users. As of March 2015, 4 ideas have been implemented and shipped into the market. Moreover, 16 other ideas have been taken up for design and implementation in future releases of the product. If you have posted on the Ideastation, you can check the status of your idea by checking which bucket it is placed in.

What's next?

We are currently in the process of implementing the next set of ideas, stay tuned for more information on their release.

Thank you for supporting the AutoCAD Electrical Ideastation community by posting your idea(s). This helps us realize what functionality matters to you, what your pain points are and what enhancements you would like to see in the product.  

As we rely so heavily on kudos, please take a few minutes to review others' ideas and if you face the same or similar challenge, or you think it is a great idea, give their ideas a kudo!

Happy posting and kudo-ing!

Best Regards,

Rajeshree & Samreen

 

Wire Number Attributes Get Some Attention in AutoCAD Electrical 2016

A wire number in AutoCAD Electrical is a block, where the WIRENO attribute contains the wire number. For quite a while the wire number blocks have contained other attributes, W01USER through W10USER. But, AutoCAD Electrical didn't really do anything with these attributes. Many of our customers asked that we make it easy to edit these attributes and include them in some key wire related reports. AutoCAD Electrical 2016 does just that.

When you edit a wire number, the dialog now lets you edit these 10 attributes.

The Edit Wire Number dialog behaves a little differently now that it includes these attributes. In previous releases, Fixed was checked by default because the main reason to edit a wire number was to change it to fixed. Now that the dialog has edit boxes for these 10 user attributes, Fixed is not checked by default. However, if you change the wire number value, Fixed is checked automatically.

The W01USER-W10USER attributes have been added as available fields in these reports:

• Wire From\To
• Component Wire List
• Connector Plug
• Terminal Plan
• Cable From\To

Because new fields have been added to these reports you shouldn't use report format files (.set) that you created in previous releases. You will need to create new report format files so the file is in sync with the actual fields available for the report.

Customize the Labels on the Edit Wire Number Dialog

For those of you who like to tweak things, you can customize the labels for the 10 user attributes on the Edit Wire Number dialog. So instead of seeing the generic W##USER label you could see something to indicate what you want to use each attribute for.

This requires making a change on the wire number library symbols.

1. Find your library folder, for example C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Acade 2016\Libs\iec-60617.
2. Open the horizontal wire number library symbol, wd_wnh.dwg.
3. Double-click the W##USER attribute you want to add a custom label for.
4. Add the value for the label in the Prompt field.
   
5. Repeat for each attribute.
6. Save the symbol.
7. Repeat for the vertical wire number symbol, wd_wnv.dwg

For new drawings, or drawings that have never had wire numbers, your changes can be seen as soon as you insert and edit a wire number. For drawings with wire numbers already inserted, you will need to run Swap Block using the Update a Block option to swap in this updated wire number block.

By Pat Murnen

Default Wire Sequence in AutoCAD Electrical 2016

When a wire network contains more than two devices, it is not always clear what the intended order or wire sequence should be. And this can be very important, especially in a Wire From\To report.

Up until now, defining the wire sequence on each wire network has been a manual task using the Edit Wire Sequence command.

This can be very time consuming and difficult on a complicated network.

AutoCAD Electrical 2016 now applies a default wire sequence based on the Tag/Wire Number/Wire Sequence Sort Order property. You can set it for the project so it applies to each drawing in the project.

You can override the project setting on a drawing by selecting a value other than No override in the drawing properties.

With this new feature, you no longer have to set the wire sequence on every network. You only need to define the wire sequence if it does not follow the default order.

By Pat Murnen

Want to Shape the Future of AutoCAD Electrical?

Apart from the AutoCAD Electrical Idea Station, we are always looking to engage with customers who are interested in shaping the future of AutoCAD Electrical. One way we do this, is to invite people to join our Customer Council.

The Customer Council is an online forum were participants get early access to product builds, and learn about about potential future enhancements, while we hear and respond to their experience and feedback. Sometimes, we reach out to a group of participants to do one on one calls to delve deeper into a particular problem, or proposed solution. 

The time commitment is as much or as little as you want to contribute, though we do prefer having participants that want to engage. Joining is really easy. If this sounds like something you would like to explore, why not become a member now:

Join the AutoCAD Electrical Customer Council

Regards,
Lee