Insert A Relay Coil And Child Contact (12:58 min)

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Now let's take a look at all of our Schematic Components.

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How to insert them, how to edit the information on them,

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how to handle special situations like terminals, as well as

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connectors, and some of our other specialty components.

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But first, let's look at the basics of inserting components

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in AutoCAD Electrical.

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So first, I'm going to go back to the last lesson we

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did on Schematic Wiring, and I'm going to drop in a rung here.

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So I'm going to come up to Add Rung.

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I am going to change my wire type to red

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to match this ladder, and then I'm

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going to go up to my Icon Menu.

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This is the key first step in doing anything

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with Schematic Components in Electrical.

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So in here, I see a list of all of the schematic Components

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that come with AutoCAD Electrical in the NFPA Symbol

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Library.

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If you remember from our lesson on projects,

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we have many different Symbol Libraries in Electrical.

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So you need to make sure that you're using the Symbol

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Library that you want for the drawing types

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that you're doing.

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In this case, I am using the US standard of NFPA

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in imperial form, and now I'm going

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to be able to start accessing the different components

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that I want to place in this drawing.

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So in this first case, I'm going to go back,

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much like I did during the initial basic workflow exercise

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that we did to kick this off, and I'm

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going to go into my Relays and Contacts

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and I'm going to grab a Relay Coil.

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I want to pause right before I grab it to just talk

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about this menu in general.

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In this menu, we can see the full menu navigation

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on the left-hand side here.

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So you can navigate into each subfolder

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to see what the additional components would be in there,

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as well as navigating it from the icon images.

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So I can click into each one of these

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to see them that way as well.

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The other thing that I can do as I start to insert

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is, I can see all of my Recently Used components, which

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is handy if you don't want to have to go digging for them

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again.

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You can see exactly which ones you've recently

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used if you want to be able to use those again

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in a very quick fashion.

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The other thing that you can see is whether or not

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you want to toggle these vertical,

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not have an added dialog box, or change the scale.

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These are very rare instances where you

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would need to do any of those.

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AutoCAD Electrical automatically knows

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how to toggle to a vertical or a horizontal component based off

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of the type of wire you're inserting on.

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Really important that you let it do

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that because our vertical symbols are not just

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a rotate of our horizontal symbols.

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They have the text and everything

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else set up appropriately to handle the vertical symbol

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placement.

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This would be in the case of utilizing ladders

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that are going the opposite direction of the way we're

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doing them here, where the rungs would be vertical.

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So the components would be being placed in that vertical format.

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You still want them to be readable,

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so that the attributes and everything else

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on those components is actually rotated differently

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than if you were to just turn one of the symbols we have.

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So again, the software will be smart enough

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to do this for you.

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The only time you would really flip to that

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is if you didn't have a wire there ahead of time.

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If you were placing all of your components

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before placing wires, then you would

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need to toggle between the vertical and horizontal.

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You're always going to want to look at a dialog box

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because we're going to look at that in a second.

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And you'll see the power of filling out

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all of that information.

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Really important that you don't turn off the dialog box.

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And scaling, the scaling is predefined

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to be set up to have a really clean set up to how

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you do all of your schematics.

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So if you find yourself having to change the scale constantly

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of the components when you're using this dialog box,

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make sure you take a look at what your actual template is

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set up to be or, what the overall scale of the library

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is.

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Perhaps you need to change it globally,

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as opposed to having to do that manually every single time you

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insert.

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Remember the key to AutoCAD Electrical

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is the lack of manual efforts that we

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have to do with the software.

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So if you're finding yourself doing something manually

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over and over again, there's probably another opportunity

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to make that automated.

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OK.

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Now let's place that Relay Coil into our drawing.

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So l'm going to zoom up, place it right here on my wire.

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It's going to automatically trim the wire.

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You can see that in the background here.

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And it's already starting to place my family reference

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number on it, as well as it's preparing

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for any cross references because this is a relay,

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it knows that it can have a child component attached to it

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that could be normally open or normally closed.

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So you can now see that the dialog box opens.

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It's utilizing that format that we predefined of %F%N

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for the family code and the line reference number.

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And now we can fill out all of the rest of this dialog box.

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The more you fill out the more you

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can extract into your reports.

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So you don't have to fill everything out

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but the more intelligent the object

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will be the more you fill out for it.

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So let's start with description.

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Descriptions may be two lines or three lines.

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You could choose to add additional ones if there's

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a component that only has two and you want

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to add another attribute to it.

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You can definitely edit the library of symbols

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that come with the software.

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Not a problem there.

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And you can of course, create your own.

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But this is all based off of the attributes prebuilt

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into these blocks, utilizing all of the standard AutoCAD

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functionality of blocks and attributes together.

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So in here, I can start to look at what

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my other descriptions are.

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For instance, this could be another safety relay.

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So maybe I choose Safety Relay and I just

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change the number 4 on that.

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So then I make sure that I'm typing in exactly

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like I typed it for the other three.

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I don't type the full word "number,"

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or put a hashtag on there for number instead of putting N-O,

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like this one is listed.

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Just creates consistency.

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You can also do that project wide

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where you can see every relay coil in the database

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and what they've already been listed in this project,

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or you can use this Defaults.

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Now this is a very powerful file that you

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can customize to your own needs or your company

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needs where you can define all of your standard descriptions

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to make sure everybody is using the same language in the way

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that they refer to all of these description texts.

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You can also choose to mix languages in here.

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So if you need description line 1

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to be in English but description line 2 to be in French,

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you can do that with this tool.

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Now this tool even has language conversion options.

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So you can switch common phrases into many different language

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formats so that you can add that to this particular database.

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Really powerful tool.

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It lives as just a Notepad file, but you can edit it manually

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or edit it in here to be able to give you

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all of those standard descriptions for your company

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to use.

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All right.

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I'm not going to change the language on this,

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I'm going to leave this with safety relay.

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Now the next most important thing that we want to fill out

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is the Catalog Data that gives us

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our bill of material information,

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so it's probably the single most important thing

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that we fill out here.

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Once again, I have the opportunity

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to look at what catalog values I've been using in the Drawing

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or in the Project.

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But I want to take a look at the full catalog database

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right now.

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So I'm going to click Lookup.

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This Lookup is accessing our Microsoft Access database

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file called the catalog Lookup.

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And when we installed Electrical we choose whether or not

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we actually want this to be an Access database file

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or based off of a SQL Server install.

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That's a different section for a different time,

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but those are opportunities that you have to set up your catalog

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database.

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By default, it goes to an Access database.

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And it's separated by every component type.

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So in this dropdown, there is the ability

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to look at every different type of symbol that we have.

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And then under each symbol, you'll

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see a list of all of the manufacturers we have

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that are supplied with the software.

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Again very important that you choose which manufacturers

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you want to include because that is what populates this catalog

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database.

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So remember that's during the install of AutoCAD Electrical.

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If you don't, you will only have a few default manufacturers

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get installed.

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So if you want the full list, which is over a million part

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numbers, make sure you choose all of the manufacturers

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that you want to see inside this database.

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Now I am going to grab--

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it doesn't really matter in this case which one I'm grabbing.

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I'm going to grab a part number that

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has 2 normally open contacts associated with it.

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Click OK.

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Now what happens, if you noticed,

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is as soon as I assigned that catalog value it

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automatically populated the pins for this device.

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It also automatically populated the setup for any children

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that I may be assigning to this parent.

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So it knows that there are 2 contacts available

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for this particular part number, and it also

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knows what the Pin List is for those contacts.

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Really important because it can automatically

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add that as we add the child components in.

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We can also, if you need to, add additional catalog values

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to any symbol that you put in.

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So if we go to this Multiple cat,

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you have up to 99 sequential codes

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of additional catalog values that can be

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added to this particular part.

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So if you know that there's more information,

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accessories, things that you want

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ordered with it that are not their own symbols

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in the drawing, then these can be added here

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in this Multiple Catalog.

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The last section that I want to talk about

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is the Installation and Location codes.

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Now we're going to talk about what they're intended for.

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And then we'll talk about what you can kind of use them

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as flexibility for ongoing.

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Technically, the Location code is in general

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where this component is located.

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The Installation code can dial in even more specifically

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to that particular location.

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However, most of the time, people

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don't use it at that granularity.

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So oftentimes I see people utilize location code

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for where the component is.

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And I see installation code often

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get used as additional filtration opportunities

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of the entire project because you can run reports

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on any of the installation or location codes.

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So it's another place to add more attribute information

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that you want to get into that symbol

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for pulling back out in different kinds of reports.

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So in this case, I'm just going to add a location code.

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I could again, look at what location codes I'm

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using in this drawing, what location codes I'm

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using across the whole project.

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And then you can even customize by bringing

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in your own external lists.

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And this again, just utilizes a Notepad file

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to be able to give you a list of all of the most common location

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codes you want to use in your drawing.

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In this case, I am going to call this operator station

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And this is all going to be filled out for me now.

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Now I'll click OK.

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You'll see all of that information

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populate on the symbol.

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And again, we trimmed automatically the wire

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because the symbol does that, puts the location code.

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It even moves all of these attributes

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to their own individual layers.

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Highly intelligent with how it does this.

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So this is on a location code layer.

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This is on a tag layer, pin information layer,

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description layer and so on.

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Now let's add the child component

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so we can see how all of that information translates.

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I'm going to go back to the Icon Menu.

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I am going to choose Relays and Contacts again.

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And I'm going to choose a Normally Open Contact.

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I'm going to drop it in on this wire.

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No, it does not have to be on the same drawing,

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but just for ease of demonstration,

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I'm putting it here.

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And please notice that this dialog box

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is very different than the other dialog box.

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No other information needs to be put in here,

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other than who the parent is.

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Because the parent provides all of the information

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to the child component.

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So we have a couple of ways to add that Parent.

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We can either look at a list of potential Parents

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in the Drawing, or a potential list of Parents

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from the Project, or if a parent or the sibling--

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so another child contact--

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is located on the same drawing then

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I can just click this button and it will

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allow me to select that object.

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So in this case, the Parent is on the drawing.

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I'm going to grab it, and it automatically

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copies in all of the information about that Child.

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And the pins come in as well.

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Now I click OK.

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All of that information is filled out.

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And if I go back to the Parent that cross referencing

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information is right back on there on the parent.

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It all happens in real time.

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Please take a moment to do the lesson on Inserting a Relay

12:53

Coil and Contacts.