AutoCAD Electrical

Electrical Audit – Ignore and Hide Issues

The Electrical Audit reports on many potential problems in your project. It can be very useful in identifying duplicate tags, children without a parent, and much more. But, sometimes what it reports is not really a problem. Maybe it is just a component that is only wired on one side so it is reported as no connections. Or maybe there are components that you never assign a catalog and yet they show up in the report every time.

The Electrical Audit has been updated in the Subscription Advantage Pack so that once you have determined something is not really a problem you can hide it.

To hide issues, first you need to mark them as Ignored.

At any time you can hide the issues you have marked as Ignored.

The issue status is remembered each time you run the audit and across sessions of AutoCAD Electrical.

Ignored issues are included in the output text file when you export, even if they are hidden in the dialog. If an error has been marked as ignored, it's indicated in the Status column in the text file.

By Pat Murnen

Eaton catalog data for AutoCAD Electrical & Autodesk Inventor (2015 & 2016 releases)

Introduction:

Electrical designers use AutoCAD Electrical’s comprehensive database for assigning catalog data to the components used in drawings. AutoCAD Electrical 2015 established strong interoperability with Autodesk Inventor Professional 2015 by introducing Electrical Catalog Browser add-in.

When it comes to use the same catalog data components in previous releases of Autodesk Inventor before 2015 release, they had to pick parts from various locations where inventor parts are stored. This whole process was extremely tedious & time consuming.

With the introduction of Electrical catalog browser add-in in Autodesk Inventor 2015 also brings a new column introduction (SYMBOL3D) for AutoCAD Electrical’s 2015 catalog database (default_cat.mdb) which now holds Inventor part path as well. User can now simply use the same electrical catalog database in electrical catalog browser add-in by configuring the same catalog database when they work with add-in.

Introducing new comprehensive catalog data for EATON:

Eaton is a leading manufacturer of electrical components used in various fields around the world. Eaton introduced new series of component for designers. Eaton team worked with AutoCAD Electrical team to supply catalog data for integrating with AutoCAD Electrical’s catalog database. The comprehensive catalog data also include detailed Inventor 3D parts of the new series.

Introducing Content installer for integrating Eaton’s catalog data:

AutoCAD Electrical has released a new content installer to install Eaton manufacturer catalog data to it’s content website for AutoCAD Electrical 2015 & AutoCAD Electrical 2016 releases.

How this content installer works?

In order to install the Eaton’s catalog data on your system, you must have AutoCAD Electrical 2015 or AutoCAD Electrical 2016 installed on your system. If you want to install, Inventor 3D parts on your system, you also need to have Autodesk Inventor Professional 2015 or Autodesk Inventor Professional 2016 installation on your local system.

1. Download the appropriate Eaton content packages from content website depending on AutoCAD Electrical’s version you own to your local drive.
2. Read the readme documentation that is part of installer content pack release carefully.
3. Extract the content pack zip file to your local drive.
4. Close AutoCAD Electrical instances.
5. Double click on “AceContentUpdate.exe” to install the Eaton’s new catalog data series. (Make sure you have administrative rights for installation)

 

(This screen shows Eaton content installation for Autodesk AutoCAD Electrical 2016 & Autodesk Inventor Professional 2016 release)

Note: The content installer will detect the configured path for catalog database, footprint library location, Inventor 3D parts location.

6. Click on Install button if all the paths are detected correctly.

 

Content installer will install all the components as per path configured. Once the installation is done, Eaton content updates are installed which are part of installer you selected to include in catalog database.

 

(This is catalog browser view of newly added EATON catalog series with Inventor 3D parts configured in catalog database post content installation installation)

If user configures the same catalog database in Electrical Catalog Browser add-in in Autodesk Inventor installation, they can insert the inventor 3D part directly from the catalog browser add-in itself.

So what are you waiting for…?

Visit our content website and install latest Eaton catalog data series!!

 

AutoCAD Electrical Subscription Advantage Pack

The Subscription Advantage Pack is a collection of value-added features, available to subscription based users. AutoCAD Electrical Ideastation serves as the platform for collection of ideas from all our customers. Some of the most popular ideas in this portal are picked up by our team, groomed, churned through a development cycle and finally, delivered as installable feature bundles, thereby the subscription users can gain an early access to the latest product enhancements.

As of July 16th, the subscription advantage pack is ready to be downloaded. We encourage users to post new ideas & enhancement suggestions on this forum and give kudos to others' ideas that they support which in turn helps us filter the most valued ideas.

Let's get a little deeper on what to expect from the enhancements in this Subscription Advantage Pack:

Electrical Audit

There are times when the user runs the electrical audit and sees the same errors over and over again.These errors might not be of importance to the user, and so with this new enhancement the user can ignore, hide & unhide the errors, making it easier to view new errors and hiding the ones that are of low importance.

Another enhancement that comes with this feature is that the word "error" has been replaced by "issue".

Panel Layout

In this enhancement, the schematic list sort settings are saved across sessions when inserting panel footprints from a schematic list.This allows the user to insert footprints for similar devices of choice without sorting it every time when entering into the schematic list.  

Signal Arrow

In the Signal Code dialog, the OK button updates related source and destination arrows irrespective of whether or not they are in the same drawing when adding signal arrows. This enhancement aims to achieve better productivity by eliminating the hassle of manually updating all the source arrows references.

Terminal Strip Table Generator

With this enhancement the user can now sort the terminal strips in the Terminal Strip Table Generator by clicking the column header. This will help the user to sort on any column, usually in order of strip ID, consequently reducing the time to browse through the entire list to reach the desired terminal strip  

Are you on subscription? Do you want these features?

Download from the Autodesk Subscription Center. If you need help on how to download, then please watch this tutorial.

If you thought this was it, then you're mistaken. This is just the first of many Subscription Advantage Pack releases. There will be another release in the coming months with more value-added features.

We at Autodesk, value the ideas you post on the AutoCAD Electrical Ideastation which helps us understand the problems you face. We want to thank each one of you who took out the time to post new ideas and promote other valuable ideas. Stay tuned for the next set of features/enhancements.

Thanks,

AutoCAD Electrical Ideastation team