{"id":28218,"date":"2021-04-06T11:00:30","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/?p=28218"},"modified":"2021-04-05T09:21:32","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T13:21:32","slug":"understanding-2d-cabinet-layouts-in-solidworks-electrical-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/2021\/04\/understanding-2d-cabinet-layouts-in-solidworks-electrical-part-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Understanding 2D Cabinet Layouts in SOLIDWORKS Electrical \u2013 Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

As an engineer, you are on a never-ending quest to efficiently produce meaningful designs to generate amazing and profitable results. On your quest, you must be resourceful and you sometimes must use new methods to get where you\u2019re going!\u00a0There are also rules along the way to help you get where you\u2019re going with much less hassle and strain\u2026never starting land wars in Asia comes to mind.<\/p>\n

An important tool for your quest as a SOLIDWORKS Electrical user is the 2D Cabinet layout feature. It\u2019s no surprise the 2D cabinet layout tool in SOLIDWORKS Electrical<\/u><\/a><\/strong> is quite proficient at laying out your cabinet enclosures and is filled with ducts, rails, and all of your design components. But, recent versions of SOLIDWORKS Electrical have made the feature easier to use and also much more versatile. So much so, the \u201c2D Cabinet\u201d name of the feature can be a bit\u2026misleading. Consider that we\u2019ve helped customers use the feature for it\u2019s namesake, but also top level assembly layouts where key components are labeled (sensors with their IO addresses, Motors, switches, etc.), or harness layouts can be efficiently represented using this drawing type as well!<\/p>\n

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First, the layout of your design parts can drive the wire cabling order based on their relative position.\u00a0I don\u2019t know about you, but the less time I spend manually ordering wires is a win!\u00a0You can also get creative, using the space as a scalable area for laying out harnesses, placing tables, connection label information, or describing special relationships between design locations.\u00a0But, before you dive into the possibilities, you need to know the background and settings that influence your results.<\/p>\n

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2D cabinet parts have their own Library section.\u00a0You can use existing symbol geometry (copy, paste, and change symbol type) if you had a connection label or a line diagram symbol for which you can use the geometry.<\/p>\n

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As soon as you change the symbol type, that 2D cabinet symbol will ONLY be available in the 2D cabinet library manager.<\/p>\n

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Inserting parts into 2D cabinet layout can be as simple as right-clicking on your part in the 2D cabinet layout feature and inserting.<\/p>\n

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You can insert non-electrical parts directly to your location, such as enclosures, rails, ducts, and wire management accessories. Anything added with a part assigned in this way will show up on your final BOM reports as well!<\/p>\n

On your quest, you may encounter \u201cPOUS,\u201d or \u201cparts of unusual size.\u201d\u00a0Conquering these buggers can seem intimidating at first as your parts can look\u00a0scaled or warped.\u00a0Both instances are by design, so fear not, the fix is not far away!<\/p>\n

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First, the layout will obey the scaling you\u2019ve set for the 2D cabinet layout tool.\u00a0You can change this setting on the fly, and the elements on the page will scale accordingly.<\/p>\n

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The second thing to check is if the 2D part dimensions are accurately defined as these dimensions will override the drawn symbol and scale it inappropriately.\u00a0When you have made the changes to the dimensions, update the 2D symbol drawing.\u00a0(As a side note, if these dimensions are correct, but no specific symbol has been applied to a particular part, inserting the 2D footprint can be represented by a simple box with the dimensions following the part size settings.)<\/p>\n

Once your parts are properly proportioned and you\u2019ve finished assembling your space, including your 2D electrical component footprints, you may also use the \u201cOptimize Wire Cabling Order\u201d command to reset your wire numbering order based on the proximity and location of the parts in your 2D layout drawing.<\/p>\n

Not only will it re-order the wiring in your design, but it pays dividends in 3D as the routing algorithms will need fewer iterations to process the results.\u00a0The larger the design, the more this benefit will have a positive impact.<\/p>\n

Next time, with the background of the feature in hand, we will take a look at the specifics of filling up our library with the specific parts used on a day-to-day basis in your designs.<\/p>\n

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Contact Us<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Did you like this list? There\u2019s more where this comes from. Find other\u00a0blogs covering SOLIDWORKS Electrical by Evan<\/u><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0or more on our\u00a0YouTube Tech Tip videos<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Have a question? We\u2019re always available to talk over the phone, for you to leave a message, or for you to submit a request \u2013 just\u00a0contact us<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/strong><\/h1>\n

\"\"GSC\u2019s Evan Stanek has over 10 years of experience as an Electrical Applications Engineer. Prior to GSC, he worked as an engineer in the broadcasting field designing panel layouts and schematics \/ installations for transmitter control systems, as well as network and control layouts for radio studios. Evan is a certified SOLIDWORKS Electrical Trainer and Electrical Applications Engineer (CSWE).<\/p>\n

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As an engineer, you are on a never-ending quest to efficiently produce meaningful designs to generate amazing and profitable results. On your quest, you must be resourceful and you sometimes must use new methods to get where you\u2019re going!\u00a0There are<\/p>\n... Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":28227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,24,35,1],"tags":[2871,2872,2870],"class_list":["post-28218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidworks","category-solidworks-electrical","category-tips-tricks","category-uncategorized","tag-2d-cabinet-layout","tag-2d-cabinet-library-manager","tag-solidworks-electrical-2d-cabinet-layout"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28218"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28271,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28218\/revisions\/28271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}