Introduction to

Electrical Circuit Design

INSTRUCTOR MANUAL
2015

academy.autodesk.com
INSTRUCTOR MANUAL

Table of Contents
Project Overview........................................ 3

Key Terms.................................................. 4

Lesson Summaries...................................... 5

Lesson Objectives....................................... 9

Assets Table............................................... 10

Academic Standards................................... 11

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INSTRUCTOR MANUAL

Project Overview
DESIGN BRIEF
Electrical design encompasses a broad variety of electrical and controls applications and a number of different documentation styles that can
be used for them. Add to this internationally recognized standards for this documentation and you need to have an industry focused, flexible
tool.

In this course we will touch on several different approaches to creating electrical schematics for single and three phase alternating current
(AC) as well as Direct current (DC) applications. You will also get an introduction to using schematic information to select the physical
footprints of components for defining a control panel layout to make sure your control panel can accommodate the components needed.

SOFTWARE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Autodesk AutoCAD Electrical 2016

TIME
1-2 hours per module 01 Create a project and add existing drawings to it.

LEVEL
Beginner 02 Build schematics of different types by placing
wires and electrical components.

03
PREREQUISITE Select components that match others in the
This project is intended for beginning students who need to design or from a library.
design and document electrical designs using schematics

04
and panel layouts. Prior experience with Autodesk Save time and reduce risk of errors by copying an
AutoCAD or electrical controls design will be helpful but is existing circuit.
not required:
Creating an AutoCAD Electrical project


Adding drawings to the project
Place electrical components
05 Convert an existing AutoCAD symbol into an
electrical component stored in the library for
future use.
Use existing components to select new components

06
Placing multiple wires
Add physical footprint profiles to a panel layout
Copy existing circuits based on schematic information.
Convert AutoCAD Blocks to Electrical components

07
Linking multiple connectors Insert a bill of materials into a drawing.
Generate a list of components based on a location
code
Place symbols of a component footprint from list
Generate a table of components used in a panel
Annotations
Schedules
Construction Document Sets
Below is a link to additional information on the tools and
workflows of AutoCAD Electrical.
The Hitchhikers Guide to AutoCAD Electrical Basics

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Key Terms
ALTERNATING CURRENT (AC) - an electrical transmission standard where the flow of electrons alternates direction.
This is the standard for household wiring and many commercial applications. This current alternates between a
positive hot line and a neutral line.

BILL OF MATERIALS - a list of required components, wires, mounting equipment or anything required to reproduce
the design in the schematic in the physical world.Array is an arrangement of elements in a building model.

DIRECT CURRENT has uni-directional electron flow between a positive pole and a negative or ground. Battery
powered devices are typically DC. A battery will have a positive pole indicated with + sign and a negative or
ground represented with a sign.

ELECTRICAL COMPONENT - schematic symbols and specialized line work that is used to construct a diagram
leveraging automatic editing functions and text values.

PANEL - commonly this is a box made of sheet metal or plastic in which some components are placed. Other
components might be mounted to the surface so actions such as turning power on and off or monitoring the func-
tion of electrical equipment can be done without risk of contacting wires inside the panel.

PROJECT - a defined group of drawings related to the work presently being done. New files can be created or
existing files can be added to a project. AutoCAD electrical can track relationships between components across
drawings included in the project.

THREE PHASE AC - used where higher demands are required such as heavy duty or commercial equipment. A
household electric oven will frequently use three phase wiring using two positive wires and a neutral wire.

WIRE - a vital part of an electrical circuit that is the conduit for electricity between components.

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Lesson Summaries
INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS

This lesson will introduce the critical fundamental elements

for using AutoCAD Electrical for electrical design: Projects
and Electrical components. The work is done in the context
of a ladder diagram showing single phase AC.
Projects create an environment for AutoCAD Electrical to
store, track and create connections between multiple .DWG
files. Files can be created in or added to a project. An
existing project can be duplicated to create a starting point.
In this lesson students will create a new project then add
existing drawings to that project for editing.
Many industry designers have used AutoCAD Line and Block
tools to create schematics for decades. The tools that
students will be introduced to are the specialized Electrical
Components. These tools have a built in understanding of
how schematics should look. For instance, wires know what
gauge and color they are and will break and reconnect to
components that are placed on them.

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Lesson Summaries
ADDITIONAL TOOLS FOR THREE PHASE AC

In this lesson students will continue to work with electrical components in the context of a three phase design.
Three phase circuits will have components that interrupt both hot lines and the neutral, so users need to place
multiple representations of components across multiple wires at the same time. Reducing duplication of effort is
another important idea that students will explore in a schematic of a different style.
Students will learn to place multiple wires and understand how they should interconnect for creating diagrams of
three phase circuits. Tools like the Multiple Bus can be used to place groups of wires. Electrical components can be
copied from other parts of a schematic and numbering will automatically update to prevent duplicated component
numbers.
Three phase circuits will have components that interrupt both hot lines and the neutral so users can place
multiple representations of components across multiple wires at the same time.
When working with electrical systems, its not uncommon for the same type of components to be placed in the
same order along a circuit. To save time, you can copy an entire circuit to another part of a schematic, to another
drawing, or add a frequently used circuit into a library.

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Lesson Summaries
WORKING WITH DC CIRCUITS

Where electrical designers will take liberty with schematic standards is in their symbols. Its common for these
designers to have AutoCAD blocks of these symbols for components that theyve used for many, many years. This
lesson will use a schematic that uses both series and parallel connections. Students will also place a connector and
tie it to another connector.
AutoCAD Blocks are great at placing a collection of geometry several times in a drawing or in multiple drawings.
Electrical components can include text that automatically populates its values and can have electrical terminals to
aid in connecting wires. These symbols can be drawn from scratch or they can use an existing block as the founda-
tion. Students will place an AutoCAD Block into a drawing and then use the Symbol Builder tool to create an
electrical component from it. They will then add it to the library so that it can be placed just like symbols that
come built into AutoCAD Electrical.
After practicing adding wires, the students will add multiple instances of a fuse with different values on different
wires without the repetition. They will also place a Solid State Relay that has four terminals. The first two will
automatically connect to a wire that it breaks, and students will need to add wires to connect the rest of the
component. The last symbol placed will be a connector. This connector will need to link to an existing connector.
The Wire tool could be used, but instead the students will use another application of the Multiple Bus tool.
Finally the color and gauge of the wires will need to be updated and a new default wire type will be set before
placing a last wire to ground.
When working with electrical systems its not uncommon for the same type of components to be placed in the
same order along a circuit. To save time you can copy an entire circuit to another part of a schematic, to another
drawing, or add a frequently used circuit into a library.

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Lesson Summaries
CREATING A PANEL LAYOUT

Ultimately the symbols in an electrical schematic will be placed on a machine or in a product as physical compo-
nents. Traditionally a designer would need to go from drawing to drawing and track which components belong in
a particular location. Another technique is to keep a running bill of materials, but this requires updating and
keeping multiple documents in sync. In this lesson, students will generate a list of components from the drawings
in the project to know what components are not yet placed in the panel and then draw from the library to place
the footprint of the component into the panel. Then, a bill of materials will be added to the drawing showing
which components are included.
AutoCAD Electrical can run a large number of different reports. These reports can be added as tables to a
drawing, be used to generate external files, or to create a list for internal reference. In this lesson, a list will be
generated of the components that need to be in Operator Station 3, and then the list will be filtered to show
which components are not yet placed in the panel layout drawing. Components not yet placed can be selected
and a block of that component can be added without the user having to look up the manufacturer and model
information.
After placing a few components, similar steps to generating a component list for selection can be used to create a
list of components to add a table to the drawing.
When working with electrical systems its not uncommon for the same type of components to be placed in the
same order along a circuit. To save time, you can copy an entire circuit to another part of a schematic, to another
drawing, or add a frequently used circuit into a library.

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Lesson Objectives
PROCESS AND ASSIGNMENT:
Software and hardware covered: Autodesk AutoCAD Electrical 2016

INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS:

Create a Project
Insert wires into a ladder diagram
Add wlectrical components to the schematic
Generate wire numbers for the design

ADDITIONAL TOOLS FOR THREE PHASE AC:

Place multiple wires simultaneously
Add electrical components
Copy an existing circuit

WORKING WITH DC CIRCUITS:

Convert a block to a component
Use scaling with components
Place connectors

CREATING A PANEL LAYOUT:

Generate a list of components
Place a component footprint
Create a Bill of Materials

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INSTRUCTOR MANUAL

Assets Table
INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS
02 Electrical Components.dwg, 03 Three Phase AC.dwg,
DATASETS
04 DC Circuits.dwg, 05 Schematic.dwg

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE AutoCAD_Electrical_TV02.docx

SOFTWARE TUTORIALS Introduction to Electrical Components.mp4

ADDITIONAL TOOLS FOR THREE PHASE AC

DATASETS 03 Three Phase AC.dwg

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE AutoCAD_Electrical_TV03- Three Phase AC.docx

SOFTWARE TUTORIALS Additional Tools for Three Phase AC.mp4

WORKING WITH DC CIRCUITS

DATASETS 04 DC Circuits.dwg

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE AutoCAD_Electrical_04_DC_Circuits.docx

SOFTWARE TUTORIALS Working with DC Circuits.mp4

CREATING A PANEL LAYOUT

DATASETS 05 Schematic.dwg, 05 Panel Layout.dwg

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE AutoCAD_Electrical_TV05.docx

SOFTWARE TUTORIALS Creating a Panel Layout.mp4

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