Equipment Item, cable lengths and a few other things

[Oaktown]

I would appreciate if anyone could point me in the right direction. I'm trying to understand the equipment item, cable lengths and cable pull report available in ConnectCAD. I made a basic file with 2 rooms (control and event), the control room has one computer and the event room has one projectors connected with two cables (CAT6a and HDMI fiber). I created some cable routes with ceiling drops and wallboxes. 

 

Here are my questions:

1. When creating a new equipment item and using the name of an existing device (name is PJ in my file), I choose to [Link device name] but the equipment item does not take on any of the characteristics of the device (make, model, physical, etc...) and if I create a Current Layer Device Report, I am not able to update from the worksheet (it says that the selected paramater is defined by the object style)
2. If I use the automatic cable length, it seems to work well but I try to use stock cable length that are shorter than the actual run (50ft for an 89ft run) it shows the cable length as 50ft in the report instead of 2x50ft
3. If I add cable slack in the ceiling drops (10ft) and wallboxes (6ft) the overall length of cable doesn't change when it should add 32ft to the overall length of cable in this case
4. If I try to move a drop point, the cable routes goes from being a polyline to being a bezier and I'm not seeing a setting for controlling this behavior (in the attached file, I moved the ceiling drops in the Event room
5. The Cable Pull report doesn't give any details when I run it. 
6. When using the Equipment Item and trying to use symbols from the Entertainment library, there is only a limite number of symbols available and if I want to use one that's not available, I need to make it active in the document in order to use it. 

 

Thank you,

Frédéric "Oaktown"

CC Test File.vwx

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

Hello @Oaktown,

 

20 hours ago, Oaktown said:

When creating a new equipment item and using the name of an existing device (name is PJ in my file), I choose to [Link device name] but the equipment item does not take on any of the characteristics of the device (make, model, physical, etc...) and if I create a Current Layer Device Report, I am not able to update from the worksheet (it says that the selected paramater is defined by the object style)

- When you link an equipment item to a device then the equipment item becomes the data source and its data is used. If you want to create an equipment item from a device using the device data you should use the Create Equipment menu command.

 

20 hours ago, Oaktown said:

If I use the automatic cable length, it seems to work well but I try to use stock cable length that are shorter than the actual run (50ft for an 89ft run) it shows the cable length as 50ft in the report instead of 2x50ft

- If you talk about the circuit cable length parameter, if you choose something different than Auto then this is the total length that you specify and it will not be related in any way to any physical representation of the circuit.

 

20 hours ago, Oaktown said:

If I add cable slack in the ceiling drops (10ft) and wallboxes (6ft) the overall length of cable doesn't change when it should add 32ft to the overall length of cable in this case

- If your circuits have auto cable length selected then when you run Calculate Cable Lengths menu command the slacks will be taken into account and the circuit lengths will update to reflect this.

 

20 hours ago, Oaktown said:

The Cable Pull report doesn't give any details when I run it. 

- The cable pull report is configure to group the reported circuits together if they share the same physical route. You can deselect this by clicking on the row 2 column F in your report and deselecting Summarize Items as shown in the picture below. Let me know if this got you what you expect.

 

 

20 hours ago, Oaktown said:

When using the Equipment Item and trying to use symbols from the Entertainment library, there is only a limite number of symbols available and if I want to use one that's not available, I need to make it active in the document in order to use it. 

- We already have a wish to include all entertainment symbols for the equipment item and we are considering it. For now, what you have described is the way to go.

 

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

[Oaktown]

Hello @Nikolay Zhelyazkov

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

Quote

- When you link an equipment item to a device then the equipment item becomes the data source and its data is used. If you want to create an equipment item from a device using the device data you should use the Create Equipment menu command.

 

I think my issue with the Equipment Item tool is that it doesn't seem to work the way it should.

 

If I use the Create Equipment menu command it works as expected but if I use the Equipment Item tool and drag it over an existing spotlight device such as a speaker from the library (the device turns red), I would expect the equipment item to inherit its data from the device that it just got connected to. Instead, all the data is in the equipment item is blank. All the data is in the spotlight device (make, model, dimensions, wattage, etc..) so why is that not getting linked automatically?

 

Quote

- If you talk about the circuit cable length parameter, if you choose something different than Auto then this is the total length that you specify and it will not be related in any way to any physical representation of the circuit.

 

I guess the part that doesn't make sense to me is that if the route is 89ft and the chosen cable is 50ft then this should get flagged when you run the Analyse Cable Routes or Calculate Cable Length menu commands to let you know that some of the chosen cables are too short for the route. 

 

Quote

- If your circuits have auto cable length selected then when you run Calculate Cable Lengths menu command the slacks will be taken into account and the circuit lengths will update to reflect this.

 

It doesn't take the slack into consideration when I run Calculate Cable Length and the overall length of cables remains the same whether I build some slack in the Drop Points or not. I've tried setting the slack to 100ft for each of the Drop Points in the sample file which should add 400ft to the cable length but it doesn't change the length. 

 

 

Quote

The cable pull report is configure to group the reported circuits together if they share the same physical route. You can deselect this by clicking on the row 2 column F in your report and deselecting Summarize Items as shown in the picture below. Let me know if this got you what you expect.

 

Shouldn't the report default to not summarize the cables since this is labeled as a Cable Pull Report?

 

Quote

- We already have a wish to include all entertainment symbols for the equipment item and we are considering it. For now, what you have described is the way to go.

 

Is this being worked on or still at the wishlist state? It would seem like the obvious thing to do since ConnectCAD is to make processes easier. Without being able to access all entertainment symbols it add time consuming steps to the process which are not necessary. 

 

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

25 minutes ago, Oaktown said:

If I use the Create Equipment menu command it works as expected but if I use the Equipment Item tool and drag it over an existing spotlight device such as a speaker from the library (the device turns red), I would expect the equipment item to inherit its data from the device that it just got connected to. Instead, all the data is in the equipment item is blank. All the data is in the spotlight device (make, model, dimensions, wattage, etc..) so why is that not getting linked automatically?

- Because we do not have full integration between these objects. For now the equipment item just follows the spotlight device and does not get any data from it.

 

26 minutes ago, Oaktown said:

I guess the part that doesn't make sense to me is that if the route is 89ft and the chosen cable is 50ft then this should get flagged when you run the Analyse Cable Routes or Calculate Cable Length menu commands to let you know that some of the chosen cables are too short for the route. 

- Well the fixed cable lengths were provided so that users can set up their preferred length including some spare, etc. Keep in mind that the case might be that the circuit does not have a physical cable and then there would be nothing to compare the length with. @Conrad Preen maybe we can include this check in CheckDrawing or directly in the circuit reset logic?

 

29 minutes ago, Oaktown said:

It doesn't take the slack into consideration when I run Calculate Cable Length and the overall length of cables remains the same whether I build some slack in the Drop Points or not. I've tried setting the slack to 100ft for each of the Drop Points in the sample file which should add 400ft to the cable length but it doesn't change the length. 

- Seems like we take in account the cable slack for the end points only. If we have intermediate drop points with slack it does not get accumulated to the result. @Conrad Preen what do you think about this?

 

29 minutes ago, Oaktown said:

Shouldn't the report default to not summarize the cables since this is labeled as a Cable Pull Report?

@Conrad Preen let us know what do you think.

 

30 minutes ago, Oaktown said:

Is this being worked on or still at the wishlist state? It would seem like the obvious thing to do since ConnectCAD is to make processes easier. Without being able to access all entertainment symbols it add time consuming steps to the process which are not necessary. 

- It is being worked on.

[Oaktown]

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov @Conrad Preen

 

Thank you for the replies!

 

7 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- Because we do not have full integration between these objects. For now the equipment item just follows the spotlight device and does not get any data from it.

 

Is that something that's in the works? Considering that spotlight objects have data, It would seem that it should be an easy integration to provide. 

 

13 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- Well the fixed cable lengths were provided so that users can set up their preferred length including some spare, etc. Keep in mind that the case might be that the circuit does not have a physical cable and then there would be nothing to compare the length with. @Conrad Preen maybe we can include this check in CheckDrawing or directly in the circuit reset logic?

 

I would  expect something that is comparable to what's available in Spotlight cabling tool where it would calculate the parts based on the cable lengths specified in the settings. So for instance, if the route is 89ft, it would call for a 100ft cable if that's listed and if there nothing that long it would break it down into sub parts ie. 2 x 50ft cables. Is that something that is on your list of things coming up?

 

8 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- Seems like we take in account the cable slack for the end points only. If we have intermediate drop points with slack it does not get accumulated to the result. @Conrad Preen what do you think about this?

 

Not sure what you mean by the end points. In my demo file, I have 4 drop points (2 walls and 2 ceilings) but none of the cable slacks are taken into consideration. 

 

Are end points something different than drop points?

 

Also, as a note, why include a slack parameter if it's not taken into consideration? The slack should be available at every drop point and if we indicate that we need X amount of slack then it should be included in the calculations. 

 

And this should also be available in the Equipment Item or Device info since we always like to plan for slack at the devices in case they need to be moved. 

 

Frédéric "Oaktown"

[Conrad Preen]

57 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

1 hour ago, Oaktown said:

It doesn't take the slack into consideration when I run Calculate Cable Length and the overall length of cables remains the same whether I build some slack in the Drop Points or not. I've tried setting the slack to 100ft for each of the Drop Points in the sample file which should add 400ft to the cable length but it doesn't change the length. 

- Seems like we take in account the cable slack for the end points only. If we have intermediate drop points with slack it does not get accumulated to the result.

I don't think that slack at intermediate drop points should count towards the circuit length. The cable doesn't stop at these.

 

Conrad

[Conrad Preen]

17 minutes ago, Oaktown said:

1 hour ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- Well the fixed cable lengths were provided so that users can set up their preferred length including some spare, etc. Keep in mind that the case might be that the circuit does not have a physical cable and then there would be nothing to compare the length with. @Conrad Preen maybe we can include this check in CheckDrawing or directly in the circuit reset logic?

 

I would  expect something that is comparable to what's available in Spotlight cabling tool where it would calculate the parts based on the cable lengths specified in the settings. So for instance, if the route is 89ft, it would call for a 100ft cable if that's listed and if there nothing that long it would break it down into sub parts ie. 2 x 50ft cables. Is that something that is on your list of things coming up?

 

The key word here is "expect". ConnectCAD is not in the business of detailed modelling of physical cables. As you say this is covered by Spotlight Cable Tools. For most permanent installations the aim is to use unbroken runs of cable for greater reliability. If you want to use Spotlight Cables to model the physical cables in your system all you need to do is set the Circuit.Cable parameter to the Spotlight Cable Run ID by picking it from the popup list. After that the Circuit follows the Spotlight length and is updated by Calculate Cable Lengths.

 

I think a better way to support users who want standard lengths might be to add an option in Calculate Cable Lengths to round up to the nearest standard length.

 

My 2c

 

Conrad

[Conrad Preen]

1 hour ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

 

1 hour ago, Oaktown said:

Shouldn't the report default to not summarize the cables since this is labeled as a Cable Pull Report?

@Conrad Preen let us know what do you think.

I think it's OK as it is. I would love reports worksheets to have reveal triangles that could expand to show the summarized rows. In fact I think I already filed a request for that.

 

C

[Oaktown]

@Conrad Preen 

 

Thank you!

 

51 minutes ago, Conrad Preen said:

For most permanent installations the aim is to use unbroken runs of cable for greater reliability.

 

We don't do permanent installations and ConnectCAD seems the perfect tool for planning events so I'm a bit confused with this comment. Of course the aim is to use unbroken runs but home runs are not always an option and we do have an inventory of stock length cables but it seems like your next comment may be what I'm after.

 

57 minutes ago, Conrad Preen said:

If you want to use Spotlight Cables to model the physical cables in your system all you need to do is set the Circuit.Cable parameter to the Spotlight Cable Run ID by picking it from the popup list. After that the Circuit follows the Spotlight length and is updated by Calculate Cable Lengths.

 

That sounds great but can you elaborate on this as I'm not sure how to set the Circuit.Cable parameter to the Spotlight Cable Run ID by picking it from the popup list. 

[jcogdell]

22 hours ago, Oaktown said:

We don't do permanent installations and ConnectCAD seems the perfect tool for planning events so I'm a bit confused with this comment. Of course the aim is to use unbroken runs but home runs are not always an option and we do have an inventory of stock length cables but it seems like your next comment may be what I'm after.

ConnectCAD is primarily designed for planning fixed installations, this is why ConnectCAD only deals with the total cable lengths. There are a number of ConnectCAD features that are really useful for live events but because of ConnectCAD's focus on fixed installations they often work differently from how we in the live events industry would expect.

 

23 hours ago, Oaktown said:

That sounds great but can you elaborate on this as I'm not sure how to set the Circuit.Cable parameter to the Spotlight Cable Run ID by picking it from the popup list. 

To link a Spotlight cable to a ConnectCAD ciruit use the Cable dropdown menu in the Circuits properties. The dropdown displays all the possible cables that the circuit can be linked with, the 'Spotlight' section will displa the Cabel Run ID's of the spotlight cables in your file. Once linked the cuircuit will use the Cables length calculation and you can get the parts based on the Spotlight cable object.