AutoCAD Electrical Component Symbol Mapping

During the installation of AutoCAD Electrical, you have the option of installing electrical content from various manufacturers.  The list of installed manufactures may be edited after installation by right clicking on the AutoCAD Electrical application under Programs and Features in the Control panel, picking Uninstall/Change and selecting Add or Remove Features.

 

The manufacture catalog database entries are by default not mapped to an AutoCAD Electrical schematic symbol.  This can be shown by using the Catalog Browser and selecting a component.  You can also see the column list if you edit the component.   You will notice that no symbol callout is shown under the "SYMBOL2D" column for the selected component. 

 Note: You will need to right click on the column headers and add this particular column to the list in order to see it.

 

If you use the modal Catalog Browser to place component schematic symbols, you will also notice there is no symbol assigned to the manufacturer content selection, in this case an Eaton motor starter.

 



AutoCAD Electrical installs a complete schematic symbol library but these symbols are not assigned to every component automatically when the manufacturer content is added to the program catalog database.  It also would be a tremendous job to assign symbols to each component manually.  Luckily AutoCAD Electrical will allow you to automatically associate the selected schematic symbol to the selected manufacturer component during first time placement.  During the symbol placement a message will appear for any manufacturer component that does not have a schematic symbol assigned.  Simply select the option to "Map symbol to catalog lookup" to associate the chosen schematic symbol to the current selected manufacture content.  If you desire to have to happen automatically, place a check in the box "Do not show this again" before selecting the desired option.  A little caution should be exercised here since whichever option you select will become the default.

 

Once the symbol has been mapped it will appear in the "SYMBOL2D" column and also as a direct entry from the Catalog Brower.

 

 

 

Of course the schematic symbol being assigned is determined by the symbol chosen from the Icon Menu during component placement.  If you make a mistake or wish to change the block drawing, symbol, associated with the catalog component, you can edit the entry and select a different block symbol from your symbol directory.