Soca Distro Labels

[CharlieJS]

Morning all

 

Does anyone have template for a hot soca distro?

 

i want something i can print in A4 with channel numbers with phase colours, to cut out and stick on each of the 6 breakers.

 

I would usually do this with a Dyno, but it's really time consuming

 

Thanks in advance 

[Jesse Cogswell]

I wrote a plug-in for soca distro labels last year.  It doesn't show phasing, but may work for your application regardless.  It creates a "module" between one and six circuits for the purpose of labeling distro breakers.  You can specify things like width and height, multicable name and description and starting breaker number.  There are options for vertical and horizontal orientation for both the module itself as well as the text.  The fill color of the object can be used to match color codes if your socas are color coded.  I should note that this plug-in must be used with a layer scale of 1:1.  It's best if used on a sheet layer.

 

 

Even better, there's a button in the Object Info Palette that will auto-fill the circuit data based on the Circuit Name and Circuit Number fields of the Lighting Device object.

 

 

VERY quick to generate.  I also wrote a menu command called Create Distro Template for when you've set up a bunch of modules for a particular distro.  Select the modules and run the command.  It will ask for a name and then it will build a "blue" symbol consisting of the modules with the show data stripped out.  Next time you use that particular distro, drop the symbol in, ungroup it, and you're ready to go to set up for your next show.

 

 

I'll typically print these out on the Avery full sheet water-resistant mailing labels (like these), cut them out, and apply them directly to the distro.

 

 

To install the plug-ins, follow the instructions below:

1. Download the attached JNC-Distro Module.zip file, but do not extract it.  Leave it as a .zip file.
2. In Vectorworks, go to Tools - Plug-ins - Plug-in Manager
3. Click on the Third-party plug-ins tab
4. Click on the Install button
5. Point VW to the downloaded .zip file
6. Restart Vectorworks.  A prompt should appear telling you to do it.
7. Add the tools to your workspace by going to Tools - Workspaces - Edit Current Workspace
8. Click on the Tools tab
9. In the box on the left, find and expand the JNC category
10. In the box on the right, open a toolset that you want the tool to appear in, such as Lighting or Event Design
11. Click and drag the JNC-Distro Module tool from the box on the left to the desired toolset on the right
12. Click on the Menus tab
13. In the box on the left, find and expand the JNC category
14. In the box on the right, find a menu to place the command in, such as Tools or Spotlight
15. Click and drag the Create Distro Template command from the box on the left to the desired menu on the right
16. Click OK to accept the changes and regenerate your workspace.

Please let me know if you seen anything weird or if the tool doesn't work as expected.  Based on asking about an A4 size sheet, I'm guessing that you are working in metric.  The tool was written with imperial in mind but should work the same way in metric.  I just haven't done thorough testing for it.

 

JNC-Distro Module.zip