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Backwards tagging from child to parent - AutoCAD Electrical
March 16, 2008, 07:31 PM Nate HoltWhat if your parent/child insertion "workflow" is reversed? You first need to insert child contacts into your design. Then, when this child contact logic is in place, you pop in all of the parent coil symbols to support the various child contacts.
This is opposite the expected workflow for AutoCAD Electrical - normally it is the parent coils go in first, receive their unique tag-ID values, and then you associate the child contacts to various parents. As you do this, the parent's tag-ID comes across to each child along with any description text you've tied to the parent.
In this reverse workflow, you insert children before the parent tag-IDs are known. So, how to do it? Can it work with AutoCAD Electrical? Yes. Here's how.
Step 1: insert child contacts into your control schematic logic. Assign a temporary "code" to each, perhaps the first line of description text that will eventually be assigned to the parent. In the example here, we've inserted a N.C. contact and manually entered a tag-ID value of 52R_P1_UNDER_VOLT.
Continue with this process, inserting child contacts and assigning codes that reference back to as-yet-to-be-inserted parent coils.
Step 2: Now our child-contact logic design is complete. We're ready to start inserting enough parent coil symbols to support all our children... Insert relay coil symbol. The normal Insert/Edit Component dialog appears.
Step 3 (above): But instead of going with the automatically assigned tag-ID, we need to temporarily make the parent's tag-ID match the child's temporary tag-ID. So select the "Tags Used: / Schematic" button shown above.
Step 4 (below): This brings up the "CR Tags in Use" subdialog shown below. Pick on the "Show child references" toggle to list only child contact tags.
Step 5 (below): Find the desired child by looking at the tag name "codes". Here we pick on the 52R_P1_UNDER_VOLT child entry. Hit OK and let AutoCAD Electrical temporarily push this child's tag-ID on to the parent relay coil.
Step 6 (below): If you don't want to lose this "code" value, copy the text from the left-hand Component Tag edit box over to the right-hand "Line 1" edit box. Hit OK to dismiss the dialog.
Here's where we are now (below). We have a relay coil with tag-ID 52R_P1_UNDER_VOLT which matches up with one or more child contacts that have the same tag-ID.
Step 7: Now right click on the coil and select "Retag/Update".
... and let it retag the parent coil and also go across the project and update the tag-ID on the children for this coil.
... and here is the original child contact, now proudly carrying the tag-ID of the parent. Repeat the process for these other adoptable child contacts. Done!
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