Chuck
Thank you for highlighting the error with the help documentation. Based on your valuable feedback I have asked documentation to fix the issue ASAP.
DO NOT monkey about with the installation files or the design files as you will only cause program errors and design errors.
Please refer to my earlier post where I guided you to page 32 of the PDF - Creating a design template sheet
thanks, Jim
Jim,
Great answer. You're the best.
Interesting. This post changed in the last few minutes. I tried to respond to the original, kept getting error messages and "try again". Let's see if this one posts.
OK. So I can post again - here's my original reply to David's original post:
Hi, David,
That's my problem, precisely.I am hampered by the fact that I am the only person here that will be working with Schematic.No one else to brainstorm with.
Right now I need to figure out how to access the libraries installed in my C: drive that don't show up in the Catalog Explorer. If I can do that, I can get some real work done. I have many components and fibers already made up, but so far I can't get them to appear in the catalog unless I open the previous design.
Does anyone have the secret to accessing other catalogs in other designs?
the files on your c drive - what is the extension of the files - *.art or *.she?
In my c:\ptc\schematics_libraries\IEEE 3151975 Symbol Library Metric\IEEE_315_1975 V1_1_2 directory, I have the Virtual Interconnect files, mostly .she, some housekeeping files that look to be PTC or Schematics generated.
I need to get access to these in my new Schematics designs - I used "autogenerate" and got a blank catalog in the latest attempt. I generated many components in the Virtual Interconnect library's folder that should be in the master catalog - the one I was working with yesterday is evidently bound to that design and is invisible to me now.
How do I get the catalogs to merge? That would fix many things.
*.she file are design database files and should never be moved, deleted or accessed via windows explorer
I am assuming the design you can access the library in is called IEEE_315_1975 V1_1_2.
You have two options
Option one is submit the catalog to a central location and then point all new designs to the central location. For now i do NOT recommend you do this until you have completely setup your template design.
Your catalog should now be available in your new design
Let me know if that does not work, thanks, Jim
It worked. Now, I have the original Virtual Connect catalog. available in my design.
I also need to import the catalog data from other designs. My first attempt brought an error - "you cannot import design properties when there are protected layers"
Where do I find these layers and un-protect them? The design is an empty template and a catalog now.
If you cannot find a command use the search which in the top right corner
I agree that it would be great to have a book that covers some of the basic areas in Schematics, like drawing items. The program is massively complex and allows a lot of different types of uses, so no book can be anywhere near complete except in particular areas.
Even with a consultant helping us, she really only had time for the critical major items like design philosophy and teaching me (the administrator/editor) how to work with the data tables and minimal teaching on how to draw components. I am doing a lot of learning on my own and hitting her with questions I cannot discover the answer to. She also spent about 16 hours doing training classes for the users which covered most of their work and how to attach to different libraries.
The items in the Edit Line section of the Geometry tab only work after you have started a line. Click on Line, then the start point, then on Arc. It will prompt you to click on the end of the arc and will then rubberband the arc while you choose the centerpoint of the arc.
-To draw your fuse:
click on line
draw the straight segment (if you are using one)
click on Arc
click on the end of the first arc
if it is not creating the arc in the direction you want, right click and select flip
click on the center of the arc
repeat that group of instructions for the other half of the fuse and the remaining straight line.
There is a lot of experimentation needed and I still need to do a lot of it myself.
I am just getting things ready for the guys that are about to do their first schematics.
----------
We were ready to buy one or more of the libraries from Virtual Interconnect but determined that none of them gave us much created that we could use. They obviously must work for some groups, just not us.
I worked with the harness designers to develop some basic standards for how our new symbols would look and am drawing our own symbols so that they are consistent for spacing, size, and other style items.
We are using a hybrid design model for Schematic instead of a true schematic and a plain wire connection diagram. The one drawing will do the work of the schematic and the wiring diagram with each harness layer being used for export for routing them.
We are creating symbols for every part that we use in our circuits as groups with the mating connectors already attached. The resulting drawing looks like a schematic but there are individual wires that go to splices instead of networks that could be connected anywhere.
Chuck, I guess by now you have a better picture of how Schematics work.
but still, it is complicate to create the drawings of your artifacts.it is a time onsuption if you want to draw something close to real life artifact shape.
I have a post where I am asking why it is not possible to import a 2D drawing created in CREO PARAMETRIC direct to Schematics?
I work on CREO PARAMETRIC and I can easily draw or download the 3D of my terminal block, sofstarter, braker, deustch connector, amphenol connector, SSR and so on, then I can create a 2D of it but if I want to use it in Schematics I have to convert it to DXF then import it in Schemtics.
it is like Hello guys you work for the same company your product is an extension of their product why not make them more compatible?
of course there is a way, but you need to buy another module to interface Parametric with Schematics which makes the total investment more expensive just to be able to share simplethings.
I understand bussines is bussines but still does not make sense.
So if someone in your company works with CREO PARAMETRIC just ask to Download the 3D of the part, generate the 2D and export in DXF so that you can import it in Schematics.
I hope this gives you another viewpoint
Regards
Antonio: Creo Schematic is not in any way related to Creo Parametric other than being owned by PTC. It was written by another company (Quintic) and based on a mechanical CAD program (the line types are from it) called Medusa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEDUSA
We just found out that we cannot link the live data for the diagrams and tables into our flattened harness drawings done in Creo Parametric like we could with Pro/Diagram.
I have found some real issues with bringing in DXFs.
- It appears that the DXFs made by our old schematic drawing software generated items that Schematics doesn't know how to handle. They become invisible items at intersections of lines or off in blank areas. You have to find them by selecting areas and seeing if handles appear so you can delete them.
- The DXFs also came in as individual line segments rather than complete lines.
We decided to just use the drawing tools (it takes some discovery to find out how they work since there are no instructions anywhere) to redraw our symbols. I built up a sheet in my librarian drawing with some of the common items like contacts, coils, resistors, lights, diodes, labels, etc so that I can build up symbols faster by putting the parts together on a drawing page then copying them to the groupshape.
Since we are doing schematic symbols and not pictorials of the parts, drawing them in the Schematics editor is about as good as any other sketching program.
Way back when IBM PCs came with cassette tape interfaces for data, I was part of a local user group where I learned a lot about how pc's worked and how to make Lotus 1-2-3 really do good stuff.
Schematics doesn't have a large installed base like Parametric and it would be really useful to get together with other local people to swap knowledge.
Interesting. This post changed in the last few minutes. I tried to respond to the original, kept getting error messages and "try again". Let's see if this one posts.
OK. So I can post again - here's my original reply to David's original post:
Hi, David,
That's my problem, precisely.I am hampered by the fact that I am the only person here that will be working with Schematic.No one else to brainstorm with.
Right now I need to figure out how to access the libraries installed in my C: drive that don't show up in the Catalog Explorer. If I can do that, I can get some real work done. I have many components and fibers already made up, but so far I can't get them to appear in the catalog unless I open the previous design.
Does anyone have the secret to accessing other catalogs in other designs?
the files on your c drive - what is the extension of the files - *.art or *.she?
In my c:\ptc\schematics_libraries\IEEE 3151975 Symbol Library Metric\IEEE_315_1975 V1_1_2 directory, I have the Virtual Interconnect files, mostly .she, some housekeeping files that look to be PTC or Schematics generated.
I need to get access to these in my new Schematics designs - I used "autogenerate" and got a blank catalog in the latest attempt. I generated many components in the Virtual Interconnect library's folder that should be in the master catalog - the one I was working with yesterday is evidently bound to that design and is invisible to me now.
How do I get the catalogs to merge? That would fix many things.
*.she file are design database files and should never be moved, deleted or accessed via windows explorer
I am assuming the design you can access the library in is called IEEE_315_1975 V1_1_2.
You have two options
Option one is submit the catalog to a central location and then point all new designs to the central location. For now i do NOT recommend you do this until you have completely setup your template design.
Your catalog should now be available in your new design
Let me know if that does not work, thanks, Jim
It worked. Now, I have the original Virtual Connect catalog. available in my design.
I also need to import the catalog data from other designs. My first attempt brought an error - "you cannot import design properties when there are protected layers"
Where do I find these layers and un-protect them? The design is an empty template and a catalog now.
If you cannot find a command use the search which in the top right corner
I agree that it would be great to have a book that covers some of the basic areas in Schematics, like drawing items. The program is massively complex and allows a lot of different types of uses, so no book can be anywhere near complete except in particular areas.
Even with a consultant helping us, she really only had time for the critical major items like design philosophy and teaching me (the administrator/editor) how to work with the data tables and minimal teaching on how to draw components. I am doing a lot of learning on my own and hitting her with questions I cannot discover the answer to. She also spent about 16 hours doing training classes for the users which covered most of their work and how to attach to different libraries.
The items in the Edit Line section of the Geometry tab only work after you have started a line. Click on Line, then the start point, then on Arc. It will prompt you to click on the end of the arc and will then rubberband the arc while you choose the centerpoint of the arc.
-To draw your fuse:
click on line
draw the straight segment (if you are using one)
click on Arc
click on the end of the first arc
if it is not creating the arc in the direction you want, right click and select flip
click on the center of the arc
repeat that group of instructions for the other half of the fuse and the remaining straight line.
There is a lot of experimentation needed and I still need to do a lot of it myself.
I am just getting things ready for the guys that are about to do their first schematics.
----------
We were ready to buy one or more of the libraries from Virtual Interconnect but determined that none of them gave us much created that we could use. They obviously must work for some groups, just not us.
I worked with the harness designers to develop some basic standards for how our new symbols would look and am drawing our own symbols so that they are consistent for spacing, size, and other style items.
We are using a hybrid design model for Schematic instead of a true schematic and a plain wire connection diagram. The one drawing will do the work of the schematic and the wiring diagram with each harness layer being used for export for routing them.
We are creating symbols for every part that we use in our circuits as groups with the mating connectors already attached. The resulting drawing looks like a schematic but there are individual wires that go to splices instead of networks that could be connected anywhere.