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Cable Tool Questions


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I was playing with cable tools today, but I had some troubles.

 

Is there a way to show a list of the errors? If I put in some lighting units, but then swap them to units with other connectors, I'd love to see that my stagepin cable won't work anymore in some way.

 

How can I update the voltage or wattage in the Power Information for my lighting units? It seems like it's defaulting to 1000w and 230v for every unit, and a Mac Encore defaulted to using an Edison connector. 

 

How can I see a count adapters in the drawing? I'm particularly thinking about adapters that are automatically added, but I'd love to be able to see a count of all electrical components- Cables, breakouts, distros, etc.

 

I'd be curious to know more about best practices for cable paths. I'll go rewatch the VW University video on it now, but I wish there was a video of a whole workflow of a process, since I haven't dealt with these tools much. 

 

Thanks for any thoughts!

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
3 hours ago, pfalvi said:

Is there a way to show a list of the errors? If I put in some lighting units, but then swap them to units with other connectors, I'd love to see that my stagepin cable won't work anymore in some way.

At this point the error checking only functions when the cable is first drawn, not if the light is changed.

 

3 hours ago, pfalvi said:

How can I update the voltage or wattage in the Power Information for my lighting units? It seems like it's defaulting to 1000w and 230v for every unit, and a Mac Encore defaulted to using an Edison connector. 

To have full control over the electrical properties of a light you need to add a consumer electrical component, this allows you to define operating voltage range, power factor, power consumption and connector.
If you are happy with only changing the connector type then edit the fixtures light info record in the resource manager (right click on the symbol and select attach record), but be aware that you will need to use the universal name of the connector from the cable connector xml not the localized name. There are 2 skill videos that go through the electrical com,ponents and how to use them with different types of devices

3 hours ago, pfalvi said:

How can I see a count adapters in the drawing? I'm particularly thinking about adapters that are automatically added

Personally I would avoid the automatic adapters and use the adapter cable parts as it is easier to get the adapter count this way.

 

3 hours ago, pfalvi said:

I'd love to be able to see a count of all electrical components- Cables, breakouts, distros, etc.

This can be done using a combination of worksheets and the new cable report command. there is a video about documenting this in the cable tool skill video series on the university

3 hours ago, pfalvi said:

I'd be curious to know more about best practices for cable paths. I'll go rewatch the VW University video on it now, but I wish there was a video of a whole workflow of a process, since I haven't dealt with these tools much. 

The issue with cable paths at the moment is you need to carefully think about how you plan to draw your cables before you create the paths, as the automatic cable insertion options will only work with relatively simple cable path networks.
Another aspect is does the cable run have to go across multiple truss line to get to the end point, if so it probably better to draw the path so that it reaches the final truss line, as this will make it more likely the cables using it will follow the desired route.
 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/19/2022 at 9:53 AM, jcogdell said:
On 5/19/2022 at 5:57 AM, pfalvi said:

I'd love to be able to see a count of all electrical components- Cables, breakouts, distros, etc.

This can be done using a combination of worksheets and the new cable report command. there is a video about documenting this in the cable tool skill video series on the university

Hello I can't find the video on the university do you have a link or word to search ?

 

I'm looking a way to reproduce the "spotlight menu / create cable report " In order to have the number of part cable, but with my usually "layout" and the ability to recalculate it ... 
as you can see if I use the ='CableObject'.'UsedPartsOrdered' it doesnt count all the cable but the cable by "way" ...

hope you understand me ..

i think I have to think about script ...

image.thumb.png.9a2ab52df7b784a813fc89951ed96fb6.png

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I don't think the cable report is actually a "worksheet" in that it can be modified and reformatted.

 

For custom reports, VW has added a Worksheet Function called DatabaseByScript. Effectively, this lets a programmer write a script that picks every object that will show up in the database and the order they show up and then use the Worksheet to specify the columns.

 

But if you use/need this functionality, it becomes much harder for the user to make modifications.

 

I will leave it to the ConnectCAD team to let us know if I am correct or to let you know how to do what you want.

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@Ben59
Here's the link for the cable tools learning path on the University


https://university.vectorworks.net/local/programview/index.php?id=25

 

On 5/27/2022 at 5:55 PM, Ben59 said:

I'm looking a way to reproduce the "spotlight menu / create cable report " In order to have the number of part cable, but with my usually "layout" and the ability to recalculate it

this is not currently possible inside Spotlight that I know of, we are testing at a potential solution to help with this in 2023 but I'm not sure if it will accomplish exactly what you are looking for


 

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18 hours ago, jcogdell said:

@Ben59
Here's the link for the cable tools learning path on the University


https://university.vectorworks.net/local/programview/index.php?id=25

 

this is not currently possible inside Spotlight that I know of, we are testing at a potential solution to help with this in 2023 but I'm not sure if it will accomplish exactly what you are looking for


 

thanks but it looks something is wrong 😉 image.thumb.png.c205e43959c811a1e13f3a98045ec822.png

Edited by Ben59
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  • 1 month later...

Hello I ve found the time to see all the cable tool suite video 🙂

I still have some questions: (i ll will wrote it as they come (I'm testing the tool)

 

Is a way to update start and end of a cable?  If the distro ID change for example , I need something like update, refresh or recalculate (as for WS) 

Why it does not automatically update the source and destination in the oip ? if I select the source it create a new cable ...

 

why sometimes I've a start and an end but not in all cases ?

image.png.7e51b8e4ba161189a26a8fead5159116.png

 

 

 984847948_vwxuniversityBenPauwels.jpg.8ae4b93e76d9ab37f0a0d4ad0c0c3203.jpg

Edited by Ben59
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
20 hours ago, Ben59 said:

Is a way to update start and end of a cable?  If the distro ID change for example , I need something like update, refresh or recalculate (as for WS) 

Why it does not automatically update the source and destination in the oip ? if I select the source it create a new cable ...

 

At this time the only way to change this is using a worksheet, create a cable worksheet that displays the cable run ID, start and end parameters. Then when you change the parameter in the worksheet the cable object will automatically be updated.
There are a couple of issues with this that you will need to watch out for,

  • changing the start and end fields doesn't automatically change what the cable's geometry or redraw the cable, 
  • also it won't push any data into the devices connected to the cable, for example the circuit name or circuit number fields of a lighting device

As far as I know the root cause of the problem is that the cable tool is required to push data between the individual objects data records. The electrical components will document the changes but they are not accessible to a worksheet at this point, only in the power info drop downs or in the power planning palette patch table.

The dev team has a solution for this issue that will be in Spotlight 2023 which is released in September

 

20 hours ago, Ben59 said:

why sometimes I've a start and an end but not in all cases ?

Normally this happens whenever the cable either starts or ends at an object that doesn't include electrical components (input, output, etc...). 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hello I m back at work 🙂
Thanks for your answer, so I'll wait till september 🙂

 

I've another question who is about  cable tools but also in general about datatag ...

I've saw that for leader in datatags you can choose the leader class to be the same as the data tags and then take the graphics from that class...

image.png.a5e434d65f1afebde19934938619bf38.png

 

Is a way to do the same for the composent off the data tags ? (text / forms ...)
I would that the white circle take the same color as the cable and the leader (from the cable class 🙂

I'tried the option object class , without expected result ...

 

image.thumb.png.8d4762e9735ddba807e0c8118b02d994.png

 

For now the only I've found is to create as many tags as I've class , with, and then put the datatags class by class ... But it took time...

 

image.png.14e3e5c947976b85cec6fee6a222a578.png

 

 

Edited by Ben59
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