Electra® Help:

Symbols and Components

One Intelligent Symbol

On some occasions, users may want to create drawings that display symbols horizontally. At other times, users may want to create vertical ones. Electra makes it easy to do both, with one single symbol. Symbols in Electra are intelligent, and can be rotated vertically or horizontally with a simple right click. Rotated symbols automatically have their text and descriptions moved to the correct positions. Certain symbols are even smarter, for example, the motor symbol will allow users to place a 3 terminal or a 6 terminal motor with just a single right click. Drop a symbol onto a drawing and right click to exlpore for more options.

Placing and Duplicating Symbols

To place a symbol on a drawing, simply drag and drop a symbol from a stencil and drop it on your drawing. Symbols dropped from stencils inherits all formatting and data from it's master shape in the stencil.

To duplicate a symbol (2 methods):

  1. Method 1: Click on a symbol in a drawing, then click copy and paste.
  2. Method 2: Click on a symbol, press CTRL key, drag and drop, then release the CTRL key.

Duplicated symbols inherits all formatting and data from the source symbol. For faster circuit design, duplicating symbols are recommended, especially when users wanted to preserve text or reference formatting.

Searching for symbols

Electra symbol search works on open stencils only. Users may need certain stencils on one project and other stencils on another. Since Electra only search open stencils, it will only return symbols that you are currently interested in and ignore unopened stencils.

To search for electra symbols:

  1. Click on Electra tab | Search Symbols.
  2. Simply type in what you want to search for and click "Search" button.

Users can select to place search results in as many new stencils as required, which means searching repeatedly for the same thing is not required. These search results can also be saved in a stencil, without the need for repeated searches even across projects.

Customizing Symbol Search

To make symbol search even faster, you may mark symbols with your own keyword as follows:

  1. Right click on a stencil and select "Edit Stencil".
  2. Right click on the symbol you wanted to modify and select "Edit Master", then "Master Properties".
  3. Key in custom keywords and click OK.

Maintaining the search database

Electra scan all open stencils and place search data into a search database, "Search.accdb" that is placed on the same folder as your Electra6.mdb. The search database will be filled up with stencil data after a period of time, where some of it may be deprecated and no longer used. To clean up and clear your search database:

To clean up and clear your search database:

  1. Click on Electra tab | Document Options | Miscellaneous | Clear search database.

Intelligent Inheritance

When a symbol or wire is duplicated from another, the new symbol will inherit all formatting and data from the source symbol. For example, if you assign a relay symbol to a Siemens component, when you duplicate this symbol, the new symbol will automatically be assigned to a Siemens component. If you assign a wire to a cable, duplicating the wire will result in a new wire that is also assigned to a cable. Intelligent Inheritance allows users to set data to one symbol and re-use these data simply by duplicating the symbol.

Intelligent Automatic Numbering

When a symbol is dropped on a drawing, Electra will automatically and intelligently rename the new symbol. If a symbol is dropped from a stencil, Electra will always rename the symbol by using its default reference, as listed on the symbol's master in the stencil. If a symbol is duplicated from an existing symbol, the new symbol will inherit all formatting and Electra will rename using the existing reference format.

The same also applies to wires. If a wire is dragged from a stencil, Electra will search through its internal sorted list and rename the new wire to the next sequential number. If a wire is duplicated from an existing wire, the new wire will inherit all formatting and Electra will rename using the existing wire name format.

Editing Symbol Reference

To edit the symbol reference (2 methods):

  1. Method 1: Click on a symbol and type reference directly.
  2. Method 2: Double click or right click on a symbol and select "Edit Reference".

The Reference Window

Included on the Reference window are real time cross reference information on shapes that you have already placed on your drawing. Click on a reference to display shapes and locations for that reference.

Displaying Pin Names

To display or hide pin names, right click on a symbol and select "Set Pin Names", then click on Hide or Show Pin names. Alternatively, pin names can be hidden or shown on an entire page by clicking on menu Home | Layers | Layer Properties, and modifying the Pin layer to show or hide pin names.

Automatic Pin Names

When symbols are dropped on a drawing, Electra automatically allocate the next available pin set to the symbol. When pin sets are not available or fully used, Electra displays the pin names as red. Users can right click on a symbol and select "Set Pin Names" to manually allocate another pin set, show or hide pin names or add and edit pin sets.

Modifying Pin Sets

  1. To modify pin sets, right click on a symbol, then select Set Pin Names.
  2. To assign a pin set, click on a pin set, then click OK.
  3. To add, edit or delete a pin set, right click on any pin set and select edit, add or delete.

Understanding Symbols and Components

Symbols in Electra represents real world components, and the relationship can be any of the following:

RelationshipExample
One symbol to one component A power supply symbol represents a real world power supply.
One symbol to many components A relay symbol may represent a relay, a relay base and relay clips.
Many symbols to one component Coil symbol, main contacts symbol and auxiliary contacts symbol all represent only a single contactor.
Many symbols to many components Coil symbol and main contacts represents a contactor while multiple auxiliary contacts represents a single 4 pole auxiliary contact.
Note: All symbols have the same reference.

In Electra, all symbols with the same reference are initially organized into a single group, where they can be assigned to one or more components. Users can then divide the same symbols into further groupings, and each group can then to be assigned to one or more components.

Assigning Components

To assign a component to a single symbol:

  1. Right click on a symbol and select Edit Reference.
  2. On the Reference Window, click on Component button.

Managing Components

To assign and manage all symbols and components:

  1. Click on menu Electra | Manage Components.

By default, all symbols with the same reference are are initially organized into a single group. Users can select to move some symbols to another group by unchecking the grouping box. Once unchecked, the symbols will automatically appear in another group ready to be assigned to another component. To move back symbols to it's original group, simply select the original group and check required symbols.

Selecting a Component

When users click the "Select" button on the Manage Components window, the Select Component window will be displayed:

The Component Database

The Component database stores all component specifications so that they can be used and re-used on multiple projects and drawings. Once a component is selected, it's specifications is then transferred and stored on the drawing itself for portability. Components stored on the database are divided into categories and a single component can appear in more than one category.

To access the component database:

  1. Click on menu Electra | Component Database.

The AutoLocation Shape

The AutoLocation symbol displays the location of your references automatically in real time, all without user interference. Locations will update automatically when you move symbols, even across multiple pages. Right click on an AutoLocation shape to jump to monitored references. Multiple AutoLocation symbols can be used to monitor the same reference on multiple pages.

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