Creating Custom Symbols (13:23 min)

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[MUSIC P;AYING]

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Now that you've learned how to put schematics and panels

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and your reporting tools all together in your project, let's

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talk about customizing it.

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If you need to make your own custom symbol, which

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often happens, let's learn the tools that can get us there.

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So let's take a really basic shape and turn it into a symbol

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that we will want to use to make it electrically

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intelligent and capable of doing everything

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that you've seen thus far.

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I'm going to zoom out on a rung that already exists.

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I like to draw my symbols early this way so

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that I can see the spacing of them

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and how they look on a rung.

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So we're going to go back to basic AutoCAD.

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And I am going to insert a polygon.

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I'm not going to use my object snaps.

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I'm just going to use regular snaps.

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I'm going to choose four sides, the center of the polygon,

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and make it inscribes.

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And then we will put a circle right

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in the middle of this one, really simple shape.

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Now it may be that you're not drawing from scratch.

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You perhaps have legacy blocks or other things from AutoCAD

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that you want to bring forward into becoming electrically

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intelligent blocks.

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Absolutely OK.

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We just need to bring them into our symbol builder

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and you could automatically turn them from the regular AutoCAD

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blocks you have into AutoCAD electrically

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intelligent blocks.

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The symbol builder is located on the schematic tab

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at the very end here.

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When I click on that, it's going to ask me a few questions.

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First and foremost, select my objects.

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If you didn't have any objects because you just

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wanted to draw it right inside the symbol builder interface,

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that's absolutely fine.

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The symbol builder integrates into AutoCAD's block editor.

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You can go in there to draw anything you want.

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I just started out here so that I

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could compare it to the other symbols that I have.

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When I hit Enter, that now it becomes my preview.

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I could choose an insertion point now

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or I can choose it later.

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But if I click Pick point, I know

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I want my insertion point to be centered on my object

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and in line with where I will have the object break

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the wires at the two ends.

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I also need to choose what type of symbol

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this is, so I'm obviously going into the nfpa library

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because that is what I've been using all along.

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But then, I need to choose what I want my symbol to do.

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Is it a horizontal parent, a horizontal child,

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vertical parent, vertical child?

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Remember, we typically have versions of both.

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But if you never do vertical, don't

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worry about building a second one, terminals or then even

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your panel footprints nameplates or panel terminals.

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In this case, I'm going to leave it as a horizontal parent.

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And then I'm going to look at my attribute templates here .

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Now this attribute templates are not

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an exhaustive list of every type of component

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we have in the software.

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The generic covers that.

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Generic is every attribute you might possibly

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need in a symbol.

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The rest of them have special unique setups

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or spacing defined for how you would

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want to define that symbol with the specific attributes needed

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for that symbol.

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In this case, I'm going to make this a control relay.

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When I click OK, I will then be taken into my block editor

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environment.

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Notice we are in block editor with that standard ribbon,

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but then I can switch over to the other contextual tab

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of the symbol builder between the block editor.

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So both are contextual tabs that open whenever we

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launch into the symbol builder.

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The most important part of the symbol builder is the pallet.

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And I need to bring it over from another screen.

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This I have actually set up if you've never

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done this with an AutoCAD pilot, I have it set up to not dock.

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So I have unchecked the docking .

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And that's purpose so that I can purposeful.

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So that I can set it on top of my project manager

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without having it sinking to the screen

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and take up even more real estate.

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It doesn't matter which way you do it, though.

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You're welcome to have it dock in right next to your project

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manager.

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Now in here, I can see all of the required

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attributes for this particular component type.

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So again, this is our control relay,

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so I want all of these attributes.

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I am going to shift select to insert all of them

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and click the little insert button.

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They all come in at the exact same time.

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I just click to place them and they have the perfect setup

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to exactly where I would want them especially in a control

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relay so they can sit on one side of the bus lines

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and then they're coming in stacked on top of that symbol,

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very, very easy to set up and do.

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This is the beauty of attribute templates.

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If you are creating a lot of symbols and

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you want to have attribute templates for you as well,

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absolutely an easy thing to do.

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Attribute templates are just w blocks

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of specifically the attributes without any geometry on them,

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so that they can be inserted on top of your new geometry

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just like I just did.

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You could also have manually inserted each one of these

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to put them wherever you wanted to.

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The beauty of the attribute template

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is simply the automatic insertion of all of those.

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Now the last thing I need to do to make this fully intelligent

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is allow it to know where wires connect

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to it so that it can break the wires when it gets placed.

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That is the wire connection area here.

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Be cautious to click on it as opposed

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to just assuming that all you get is a left or none.

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You have to click to be able to see

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that there are top options, bottom, right, radial,

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and others.

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Radial would be much like the motor wiring

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that we saw before with the three phase wires that

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automatically connect.

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It is very important you choose which way the wire is going

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to be entering this object because if you choose

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the wrong thing for the location,

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it will break the wire on the wrong side of it.

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So for this case, I'm going to start with my left, click

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Insert, and that's going to be inserted right

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at the corner of my diamond.

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Now I want to flip this because I

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don't need another left insert, I need a right.

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So down at the bottom of my screen, I can choose right.

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And then that will insert there.

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I don't need any more terminals, so I can just end that command.

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I now have wire connection points,

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all of my attribute information, and it's an intelligent symbol.

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Now you do not need to fill out anything

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on the core functionality of these attributes

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here because all of that happens in the Insert edit component

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dialog box.

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Unless you wanted a constant static insert here,

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that would automatically come in every time as opposed

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to filling it out in that dialogue box.

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From here, I am going to close the block editor.

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And this is the second most important step,

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adding all of those intelligent attributes

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is what makes an AutoCAD Electrical block smart.

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It's also crucial to make sure that you name it appropriately

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because there's a lot of intelligence

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and automation built around the naming convention.

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So here, I first of all want to make sure

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that this block is set up to go to the right table

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inside the catalog lookup.

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If you remember, when we inserted

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any of our other blocks, they automatically

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knew which table in the catalog browser to go to.

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So I want to make sure, since this is a control relay,

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that it's actually going to the catalog table for control

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relays.

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This is very important when you're

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using the generic template because

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obviously generic doesn't know what that table should be.

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So make sure you take a look at that catalog lookup section.

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Now, the symbol naming convention

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is massively important as I just stated.

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These first four characters are crucial to how

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that object will operate.

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Let's break it down for you.

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It built itself, by the way, based off of the selections

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that you made in building this symbol,

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which is what you don't want to just clear

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this and type in whatever you want the name to be.

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We need those first four to five characters.

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So let's break each one of them down to explain why.

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The H is either in H or a V for a horizontal

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or a vertical component.

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Very important for you to know how it attaches to wires,

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is it horizontal or is it vertical?

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This is also how it knows how to match a horizontal symbol

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to a vertical symbol in those toggle options

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that we have inside many of the different commands.

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It can know to switch based off of that one character

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in the block name.

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The next two characters are the family code.

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So in this case, a CR for a control relay.

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This changes based off of the type of family of object it is.

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Again, very important for it knowing what that object is.

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The next character is a 1 or

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also very important for how we get the right dialog

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box and the right information on that symbol

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to know whether or not it is a parent or a child.

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There could be one more character in there

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that's very crucial to understanding the toggle flips.

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And that is another

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That is the difference between normally open and normally

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closed.

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If it's not an object that has a normally open or normally

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closed state, then there's no character for that at all.

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And we just tend to put an underscore there and then

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whatever we want the unique identifier to be.

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In this case, I'm going to call this my diamond relay.

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And when I tab, it automatically updates the symbol name

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and the png image that it's creating for my icon menu.

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Now, it's also running an audit on my entire symbol.

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So when it looks for that audit, and it's telling me

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they're zero errors, it's looking for things like,

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did I miss any of the required attributes?

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Did I by accident copy an additional attribute, now,

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I have duplicates?

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Am I missing any of the values props, anything else

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that I need in there?

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Is there a template mismatch?

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Did I say that this was a control relay

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but then switched over to using all things for limit switches?

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Are my layers OK?

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This is a very, very, very important thing

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to creating blocks.

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You should always create blocks on layer zero.

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This is true for all things AutoCAD

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through AutoCAD Electrical, but it's

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crucial to AutoCAD Electrical.

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You need electrical to be able to move

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all of those individual pieces of those blocks

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into their specific layers but electrical does so

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intelligently as we place these.

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They will not be able to do that if they are not on layer zero.

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If you didn't know this, layer zero

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is a very special layer that allows whenever

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you create a block on it for the block

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to then be able to take on the properties in the values

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of any new layer it's inserted on.

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If you've ever built a block on anything other than layer zero,

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you know that every time you insert that block,

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it ends up looking like the original block

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that you created it on with the layer properties and everything

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else that it had and it never looks like the new layer

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that you're inserting it on.

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That's because it wasn't built on zero.

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So very, very, very important that you're on layer

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zero for creating blocks.

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The insertion point check here is

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to make sure that your insertion point lines up with your wire

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connection points.

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Pretty awkward, if you're trying to insert it from the top of,

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say that diamond when the wire connections have

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to be down at the bottom and then you end up missing it

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and your wires never get trimmed.

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The orientation is the final check.

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And that is to make sure that you

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called this a horizontal symbol but didn't put wire connection

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points at the top and the bottom,

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instead of putting it on the right and the left.

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So those are all the checks that it will do for you.

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You can run this audit on its own from here in the palate,

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or you can just look for it when you're doing

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the clothes out of your symbol.

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Now when I come back in here, I'm

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just going to make sure that my diamond relay is copied over

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into this title as well.

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And then you want to make sure that you

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are saving your symbol and your png image where

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you want it to be.

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In this case, I'm actually going to drop these onto my desktop

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so that I can easily delete them.

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But these should always go into your symbol libraries

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and into your support files so that you can find that dwg file

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and that png image to add it to your icon menu, which

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we will do in the next lesson.

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I'm going to click OK here.

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And I am going to test this after closing the block editor.

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So now I'm going to come in here,

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drop it down on this wire, looking good.

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It opens up my dialog box.

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It trims the wires and it adds the attributes.

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I know that I've successfully made an intelligent symbol now.

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Please take a moment to do the exercise on custom components.