Auto-Cable Drumming

Electrical Wiring Manager supports auto-cable drumming: the assignment of cables to cable drums using an algorithm to minimize any unused cable based on each cable's length and the catalogue drum length.

Note:
Cables can also be added to drums when cables drums are being created or edited (see Create Cable Drums Manually), or manually from the Cable Schedule (see Assign Cables to Drums from the Cable Schedule).

1. From the Cable Schedule grid, select the cables to be drummed.

2. Click Auto-Cable Drum selected Cables in the Actions section of the List Tools - Cable Schedule tab.

3. Only cables with a status of New or Replace will be auto-drummed. Also, cables marked as Vendor Supplied, or with a length of 0 will not be auto-drummed. A message is displayed to remind users of this:

   

4. Click OK. The Auto-Cable Drumming Options window is then displayed:

   

5. Allow cables already Drummed to be Reassigned: If this option is selected, Electrical Wiring Manager may 'move' cables between drums to help minimize cable wastage.

6. Allow Wiring Manager to create new Cable Drums (if needed): If this option is selected, Electrical Wiring Manager may create enough new drums to assign all cables. If no drums have been created then this option must be selected. elect the required options and click Auto Drum.

7. Electrical Wiring Manager then analyzes the selected cables and any existing drum assignments, creates the minimum number of drums and then assigns each selected cable to a drum in such a way as to minimize any unused cabling on each drum.

   Any new drums are added to the Cable Drum Schedule. They will be assigned an automatically generated name consisting of "AutoDrum" followed a sequential number.

Core Usage

If the Core Usage Type Assignment checkbox on the Cable Drumming Tab of the Options window is checked, drums may be restricted to only include cables with certain core usages.

If this is the case, during the auto-cable drumming process, if cables selected to be drummed:

• All have the same core usage, then the drums will have the same core usage settings assigned.

• Have two or three different core usages, then the user is asked whether:

  • all drums are to have same core usage settings, for example, all of the two or three usages, or

  • separate drums are to be created for each cable core usage, or combination of usages that the cables have, with the cables assigned to each drum as appropriate.