Copy, Save, and Insert a Circuit (7:56 min)

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Let's talk about the circuits now in AutoCAD Electrical.

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Circuits is any combination of electrical objects

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that we want to be able to manipulate

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as a group within our AutoCAD Electrical project.

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So a circuit could be just a combination

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of a single component in a wire or two components,

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two components in the wires that connect them.

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Or it could be as big as, say, the motor circuit you see here.

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It could even be as big as the entire drawing you see here.

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Circuits can be, like I said, any combination

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of electrical objects that we want

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to be able to control and work with as a group.

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Now, we can save these circuits and actually

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use them for a later time if it's something you're

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using over and over again.

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So we're going to talk now about how to move, copy, and save

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our own circuits.

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In this case, I am going to be talking about this entire motor

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circuit that we see here.

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Let's say that I dropped it in, but I actually

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want to move the whole thing down one rung

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because I want to be able to gain space to put something

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else into my ladder.

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You would not want to just use AutoCAD move.

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If you do that, none of the components

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will then update with their new locations and new information.

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Nor would they then update their panel components

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that are associated with them with that updated information.

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So we want all of this to stay connected and stay intelligent,

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which is why we have tools to do this.

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Move and Copy Circuit are up in the Edit Components area here.

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I'm going to start with Move, and then we'll do a Copy.

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So Move Circuit works just like AutoCAD Move.

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It allows you to do a Windows select around

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all of your objects, and it allows

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you to pick a base point.

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It also will work, so be careful what you grab,

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if you do a crossing window versus a regular window.

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I would not want the crossing window

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because I don't want to grab those three phase bus

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lines that are running here.

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Once I hit Enter and I've selected my objects,

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I'm then going to choose my base point

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as this connection at 308, and I'm

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going to drop this down to 309.

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Now, you can see it go through the updating of that wiring

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information and update all of the tags and the wire numbers

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to be associated with its new location.

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We'll let it do its thing.

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And now it actually sees that there

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are 10 objects that need to be updated outside of this drawing

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to be able to match this existing drawing.

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Always say Yes, Update.

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I'm only going to click Skip because we

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don't need to see it go through that in this exercise.

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But that is definitely something you want to say yes to.

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You can see everything was updated with the new locations

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and new information on it.

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So now let's say I want to copy this

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because I want to fill out the rest of the drawing with more

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motor circuits.

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I'm going to come back up, grab a copy circuit,

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do the exact same thing I did for move.

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Grab that same base point.

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And now I'm going to start making copies.

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So I'm going to click on 312, and then I'm

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even going to click on 315 down here.

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Now, one of the most common things

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that people do in vanilla AutoCAD

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is hit Escape right now.

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Escape exits you out of the command that you're in.

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That would be bad in this case with AutoCAD Electrical

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because it wouldn't go through to do it's

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updating that it needs to do.

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You must hit Enter to tell it you're done with the command.

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If you just hit Escape, it will just wipe you out

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of the command entirely, and then it

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won't do all of that special updating.

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Because I hit Enter, I now see Copy Circuit Options.

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And it's going to allow me to make decisions

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about things I want to do with maybe wire numbers, component

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tags, or terminal numbers.

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Now, there aren't any wire numbers or component tags

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that I need to worry about.

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As you can see, they are grayed out.

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But in terminal numbers, it's noticing

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that there are similar terminal numbers

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and that I probably don't want duplicates there,

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but I more than likely either want to blank them out

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so I can edit them myself or increase them.

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The default is increase because you're

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assuming that these are probably a part of the same terminal

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strip with the same information, so they're just

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going to continue increasing to build out that terminal strip.

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I'll click OK, and they will all update,

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and all of the rest of the components in the tags

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will update as well.

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Now, there may be times where you see the wire numbers go

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to a question mark like you're seeing on mine right now.

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That is an easy refresh of your wire numbers that you can do.

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It's just noticing that there's new locations.

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So while it's updating the component tags,

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it doesn't update those wire numbers at the same time

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to make sure that there's not a duplication there.

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So now all I have to do is hit Wire Numbers again

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like we did a few lessons earlier, and just hit a Tag

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and retag all.

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Say drawing wide.

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It takes two seconds.

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And all of those wire numbers will then get updated again,

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and those question marks will be gone.

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Now, if I want to save this circuit so that I can use it

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again because it's perhaps a motor

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circuit I use all the time, that's

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what we're going to do next.

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So now I'm going to zoom back up.

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I'm just going to take the top one that we have here.

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And I am going to go back under that Edit area

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and say Save Circuit to the Icon Menu.

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It automatically defaults to taking me

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into a section of the Icon Menu called Save User Circuits.

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You don't have to put it here.

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You could even page out of this and go up

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to Motor Wiring-- or Motor Control in this case.

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And maybe I wanted to just put it right here

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because I know it's a part of all the other motor

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control I have.

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You can place this here, or we can go back

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to those user circuits.

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It doesn't matter.

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It doesn't change anything.

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You can even move it after the fact as well.

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So in here, I'm going to say--

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I'm going to come up to Add, and I'm going to say,

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I want to Add a New Circuit.

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Now, I am literally building a block

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and setting up everything that I'd

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be doing to create a custom symbol just right

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out of the navigation here.

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So I'm going to give it a name.

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I'm going to call it Motor String.

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I'm going to give it-- and I'm just

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going to copy and paste this.

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I'm going to give it the exact same image file

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name and the exact same drawing file name.

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So what I'm doing here is creating on the fly

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a PNG image for the Icon menu.

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I am creating a W block of the full motor circuit.

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And then I'm giving it a title for what it's going

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to see inside the Icon Menu.

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Now, I have chosen to use the Create

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PNG from the screen image as opposed

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to trying to create my own PNG.

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You can absolutely create your own PNGs and replace this.

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I'm going to click OK.

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And now, if you're reading, it's asking me for my base point

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first.

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So this is going to be the insertion

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point of the full circuit.

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Then I'm going to select all of my objects

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to be included in that circuit.

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And now I have a new little motor string image there

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that will allow me to insert that motor

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string any time I want.

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And it will automatically do a special explodes.

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So if you remember from the last lesson, I said do not explode.

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This will do it on its own as a part of the insert

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to make sure that all of those components

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are broken apart into their electrical specific components

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that we need to be able to edit and pull for reporting.

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But it's doing it by being a part of this Circuit command.

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Once I'm done, I click OK.

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And any time I go to my Icon Menu now

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and I go into Motor Control, I will see that motor string

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there.

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Please take a moment to try the Move, Copy,

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and Save a Circuit exercise.