Automated ladders in AutoCAD Electrical

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AutoCAD Electrical makes it easy to insert a ladder diagram,

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a common type of electrical schematic that was clearly named after its appearance.

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With multiple wires running perpendicular to two outside wires,

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the layout literally looks like a ladder.

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The Insert Ladder tool automates the creation process.

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To create a new ladder, on the ribbon, click the Schematic tab,

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choose the Insert Wires/Wire Number panel,

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and then click the Insert Ladder tool.

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The Insert Ladder dialog opens with options to define the appearance of the ladder.

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For example, you can set the Width, the Spacing between each rung, and the Length.

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For Length, you can enter either the total length or the number of rungs.

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For this example, enter a value of 6 Rungs, and then press ENTER.

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The Length is automatically calculated, based on the Spacing value.

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The 1st Reference value is based on the highest number of ladders in the drawing.

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In the Phase group box, try switching between the 1 Phase and 3 Phase electrical diagrams

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to see how the dialog changes in response.

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Ideally, whenever you open this dialog,

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select the phase first to enable the relevant options,

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and then move on to the other settings.

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In this case, choose 1 Phase.

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Under Draw Rungs, select any of the options to see a preview of the ladder to be created.

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For example, if you select No Rungs, only the two outside wires are drawn, with no rungs or bus.

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The default value, Yes, draws all rungs and bus pieces.

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In the Skip field, you can enter the number of rungs to skip.

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For example, entering 2 and pressing ENTER skips every 2 rungs and draws every third rung.

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For this example, set the value back to 0, and then press ENTER.

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Click OK to confirm the selected options.

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Back in your drawing, AutoCAD Electrical prompts you to specify the start position of the first rung, or type in a value.

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For this exercise, click in the upper-left corner to place the first rung and draw the ladder.

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In theory, you could also use the Insert Wires tool to draw the same collection of wires,

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but as you can see, the Insert Ladder tool is much faster than drawing the wires individually.

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The ladder you just created is typical of IEC style drawings

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and has no reference numbers associated with it.

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Reference numbers come from the XY coordinates set up in your title block drawing.

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For any drawing, the reference number scheme is configured in the Drawing Properties dialog.

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On the ribbon, Schematic tab, click the Other Tools panel, and then select Drawing Properties.

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In the Drawing Properties dialog, select the Drawing Format tab.

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Under Format Referencing, notice that the default for this drawing, the X Zones option, is selected.

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X-Zones is similar to X-Y Grid, but with no Y-axis.

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Reference Numbers assigns a column of reference numbers to each ladder column.

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Select each of the three options to see how the preview changes.

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For this example, select Reference Numbers, and then click OK.

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Next, delete the ladder you just made and create a new one with reference numbers.

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In the drawing, press and hold the mouse button as you drag to select the previously created ladder,

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and then, on your keyboard, press DEL.

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Click the Insert Ladder command to open the Insert Ladder dialog.

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Set the First Reference value to 1100, and then press ENTER.

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For the Length, set the number of Rungs to 9, and then press ENTER.

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Leave the remaining options set to their defaults and click OK.

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In your drawing, click to select the insertion point.

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AutoCAD Electrical creates a ladder with reference numbers assigned to each rung.

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Reference numbers, or really, the first wire reference number, is what makes a ladder intelligent.

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It contains all of the information about the ladder and is inserted as a block with attributes.

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The remaining numbers are simply text entities, for your reference only.

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To compare the two, with no command running, select the first reference number,

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and you can see that it is a block reference.

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On your keyboard, press ESC to deselect the first number.

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Select any other reference number, and you can see that it is text only.

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In reality, you could delete all text entries without changing the functionality of the ladder.

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The insertion point of the first block includes all the information used by AutoCAD Electrical

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to determine the locations of inserted components and their tag values.