Subtitles of the Movie

AutoCAD Electrical is AutoCAD, but what you've got are electrical tools built around AutoCAD in an electrical environment. So what we've got are tools that enable us to insert a block like this. This is a PLC Input-Output unit for an electrical circuit and anybody that works with electrical circuits will recognize that and will recognize the configuration. So what we're looking at here is a Block, basically, an AutoCAD Block. As you can see, if I hover over it there, it's been put in the Layer SYMS and it's a Block Reference. Now, let's insert another one of those Blocks. They're on the Schematic tab here, and there's the Insert Components Panel there. It's this one here, PLC. So I'm going to click on the Down arrow there and I'm going to insert a Full Unit PLC there, that one there. Now it asks me which PLC I want to insert because as you can see I've got loads of them there. I'm using IEC as my Standard here and I'm going to go for this one here, an AB1761 MicroLogix 8 spacing and then I'm going to go for that one there, an L16. There it is there. I click, bring it into the drawing and there's my block. Soon as I've inserted the Block it asks me if I want to Edit that PLC module. I'm just going to OK it for now and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to Explode it. I'm just going to click there, go to the Home tab, there's the Modify Panel, there's Explode and when I Explode that, look, there's all those attributes of that Block. Look, there are loads of them, absolutely loads of attributes. Now, when you create Blocks in AutoCAD you're creating what they call Xdata and that Extended Entity data can be linked to a database so all of this information can be linked to a database or a spreadsheet to allow you to generate reports around your electrical circuits. I'll just undo that Explode and make that back into a Block. As you can see, look, PLC1, PLC2. Two PLCs, it's remembered there sequentially that that is the second PLC inserted in the drawing and again, that's just an attribute that is remembered when you insert the Block into the drawing. So as you can see, your AutoCAD Electrical environment is exactly the same as your AutoCAD environment, you just have more electrical tools available to you. So, for example, there's the Project Manager. I can close that and that looks just like AutoCAD now. If I go back here to Project, though and Manager, it brings the Project Manager back. So again, just more tools to work in an electrical environment for you.