Technically Thinking

Sending a Project???? Use Zip Project...

As many of you may know I work for INCAT, a reseller that has offices all over. I get phone calls, emails, and questions from training classes and what not.  Typically if a person is having a problem they always send me the one file they are having a problem with.  The better way that I always suggest is to use the Zip project option. I figured it is about time I put a post on this topic.

To Zip a Project:

• From the project manager right click on the Active project, Publish, then Zip Project.

• Click Do All or select the specific drawings you want to include.
• Click Ok
• At this point you need to decide if you would like to include the project database.

• Browse to the location you want to save the zip file.
• Click Ok.

The zip file will now be created.

I hope this helps.

Red Wings Playoffs

I am so excited, it is Hockey Playoff season now. I was lucky enough to score a couple tickets to game 1 round 1 at the Joe tonight. It is going to be a great matchup against Edmonton.  I will post in a couple days once I recover.

Have a good one.

Rob

Improved Electrical Autdit

I am unsure of how many people have used the Electrical Audit in previous versions of AutoCAD Electrical but here is a brief update on the improved version.  The Electrical Audit is used to identify problems in the active project. The great thing about this tool is it will find several hard to find problems that we might not catch visually just by looking.

List of Problem Checks

• Wire - No Connection - Displays any unconnected wires in the active project.
• Wire Exception - Displays missing or duplicated wire numbers in the active project.
• Cable Exception - Displays duplicated cable and wire ID in the active project.
• Component No Catalog Number - Displays all components with no BOM assignments. (NOTE: This can also be found using the Missing BOM report.)
• Component Duplication - Displays the duplicated Schematic/Panel components.
• Component No Connection - Displays component connections with no connected wires.
• Terminal Duplication - Displays duplicated schematic terminal numbers.
• Pin Exception - Displays duplicated component pin assignments.
• Contacts - Displays any children without parents.

The tool also displays a Recovery Tip located in a "Tray" at the bottom of the dialog box. This tip displays a recommended solution to fix the error.

Go To - This button will take you directly to the problem area of any selected error.

Save As/Save All - Saves the report.

Print - Prints the Report.

Dialog Box

Users will also notice the dialog displays a quantity of errors found as well as the errors are separated into tabs based off of a category. The last thing to mention is that the user can "Roll Up" the dialog box by clicking the "Details" button.

I hope that this sheds some light on an unfamiliar are for users and that they start to take advantage of this tool.

Rob

Footprints that Hide DinRail 2

I just got a comment on my Footprints that Hide Dinrail post at http://robstein.blogs.com/rob_stein_knowledge_cente/2006/02/footprints_that.html. The question was "how do you do this for circular items that are not made of lines?".  The only way that I have found is to create a polygon with 1024 sides (that is the max) this will get you very close to a circle. Then when using the wipeout command you select the Polyline option.

I hope this helps.

Rob Stein

Off by Default....

Recently a coworker asked me a question regarding Vanilla AutoCAD installation and AutoCAD Electrical or AutoCAD installed with MDT or Acad M and a difference when starting it up.  Basically there is a splash screen that comes up with AutoCAD 2007 asking what Workspace you want to start with. When firing an AutoCAD installed from AcadE, AcadM, Inventor Series 11 or AIP 11 this splash is off by default.  I was able to find a registry setting that allows us to turn this back on since we can't find it anywhere else in the software.

Below is a screen capture of the splash screen. (NOTE: It will read in any workspaces you have created giving you the option to use one icon to start autocad and optimize your workspace selection.)

Below is the an image of the registry setting.

The string to the registry setting is HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Autodesk>AutoCAD>R.17.0>ACAD-####### (NOTE: the ACAD-##### specifies what version of AutoCAD you are modifying. for example ACAD-5013:409 is AutoCAD Mechanical from the AIP CD. ACAD 5007:409 is AutoCAD Electrical)

change the LAUNCHNFWWS string to:

• 0 = Display splash screen
• 1 = Do not isplay splash screen

You can also find the post that my coworker put on autodesk discussion forum.

Here is the link http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=465658

Thanks and I hope this helps.

Rob Stein

Renamed Column Heading in Reports

I am currently living it up in Dallas Texas eating lunch and writing a post for the site. I am going to keep it fairly short since I only have a few minutes left of lunch. 

Steps:

• Run your BOM report as usual.
• When the report is displayed click on "Change Report Format"

• From the left window pane select User1
• In the bottom, middle of the dialog click in the text field that says user1
• Type in the new text you want it displayed as.
• click OK.

Thanks

Rob Stein

Off to Boot Camp

Well It is off to Dallas Texas for a week of Training on all the new releases of software.  The convention should be a great combination of Fun and learning.  In the past these conventions have been very informative and all of us come back with quite a few tips and tricks to share.  I will try to post throughout the next week with tips and tricks I am learning on AutoCAD Electrical and I might even though in some Vault / Productstream and how it works with AutoCAD Electrical in the new version.

Until then I will leave you with this.......

Nate Holt, The father of AutoCAD Electrical has started a blog site.  I have checked it out and it has some great information.  I have had the opportunity to meet Nate at certain Autodesk events and he is a great person to talk with and of course is very knowledgeable on the software he wrote. I look forward to reading all of the tips and tricks he will be giving out.  The address is http://mfgcommunity.autodesk.com/blog/nate/ so explore and have fun.

Thanks

Rob Stein

Check/Trace Wires

I was recently working with a client who doesn't currently use AutoCAD Electrical.  The main schematic drawings they create are these insanely large "Point to Point" wiring diagrams.  You know, those "sparky charts" that have a bunch of connectors and shows all the wires going from pin to pin, connector to connector.  One of their main pain points today in AutoCAD is following a wire from one pin to the next pin through the maze of wires.  I have a little cleaner data set from the newly released AutoCAD Electrical 2007 which had a much lighter weight connector diagram on it.  I used this to show them the AutoCAD Electrical "Check/Trace Wire" command.

Check/Trace Wires

The Check/Trace Wires command allows designers to select any wire segment in a design (as long as the wire is on a valid wire layer) and follow that wire through the drawing.  After the designer selects the wire AutoCAD Electrical will "highlight" the wire segments one at a time and zoom as needed to show these segments.

How to Use

• From the "ACE:Main Electrical" toolbar click and hold the "Insert Wire" button.

• From the flyout toolbar click on "Check/Trace Wire"

• Select the Wire Segment you would like to follow.

• Continue to follow the wire by pressing the space bar on your keyboard to advance to the next segment.
• Keyboard Options:
  • Pan - Allows the designer to Pan without losing the highlighted graphics.
  • Zoom - Allows the designer to Zoom without losing the highlighted graphics.
  • All Segments - Zooms out and shows all wire Segments
  • Quit - Stops following the wire segments
  • Space - Single Step from segment to segment

I believe that this command will defiantly help out the tedious work of checking your drawings to verify the wires are going where they are supposed to.

I hope this helps.

Rob