Discover the step-by-step process of creating an electrical power box symbol in AutoCAD. This article provides you with detailed instructions and tips on how to use various tools within AutoCAD to accomplish this.
Key Insights
- The process begins with creating a bounding box with dimensions of 1 eighth inch wide and 3 quarter inch tall, where 0,0 is the bottom left side.
- One complication during this process is that you cannot offset the shape as it is. To resolve this, you need to first explode the rectangle, and then offset the top and bottom lines.
- The tutorial ends with a demonstration on how to use the hatch tool to finish the symbol, and briefly mentions that the next article will cover creating a ceiling light symbol.
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In this video, we will work on the electrical power box symbol. Let's go File, New, use our template, and File, Save, and we will name this E-Power-Box.
Let's hit Save. Let's make our new layer, Layer Properties, New Layer, E-SYMS. The color will be 61, and let's make this our active layer.
If we look at the handout, this electrical power box is a large rectangle, but the line on the left side is slightly longer. The bounding box, or the biggest dimensions of this whole object, are 1 eighth inch wide and 3 quarter inch tall. An easy way to start this process is to start with the bounding box, and 0,0 is the bottom left side, where the tallest line is.
We know where we can start our bounding box and the size. Let's go to Rectangle, and that will be 0,0 for the first side, and we'll use dimensions for these two dimensions. D, Enter, our length is 1 over 8, Enter, and our width is 3 over 4, Enter.
Remember that it will ask for a quadrant, so I will click in the positive positive, and do a zoom extents, Control-S to save. Now I can use my quick measure to verify the dimensions, it is 1 eighth inch and 3 quarter inch, and I can use my ID point to verify that this bottom end point is at 0,0,0. You will notice that the rectangle is actually a little smaller than the bounding box, but we can use the geometry we have to create the right shape.
In this case, we want to offset the top line and the bottom line by 1 sixteenth of an inch into the middle of the rectangle, but we cannot offset the shape as it is. Let me show you why. If I go to the offset tool, and specify my distance of 1 over 16, Enter, this shape is a rectangle.
It will offset the entire shape, not just the top, bottom, or side lines. Also, I can't go in at all, because 1 sixteenth of an inch is half of 1 eighth of an inch, and I cannot offset this rectangle in any further. Instead, we need to first explode the rectangle, and then we can offset the top and bottom lines.
So, I will go to my explode tool, choose the rectangle, enter to lock it in, then I can go offset, 1 over 16, enter, choose my top line, show down, and again this is a preview, until I click, and my bottom line, up, click to lock it in, and hit ENTER to say that I'm done. Now in this case, the original top and bottom lines are construction geometry, so we can pick them, and hit the delete key. We're almost there.
The last thing we need to do is clean up those corners, and we know we can do that with the trim or the fillet tool. In this case, let's use fillet. I'll go fillet, make sure my radius is 0, and it is, and then I will choose this line, and remember I'm keeping the middle, now that automatically ended my fillet tool, so I can hit ENTER to go back in, here, and here.
All that's left is our hatch, so I will go to the hatch tool, choose solid, pick points, and pick in our rectangle, close the hatch creation, zoom extents, control s to save. In the next video, we will finish our electrical symbols with the ceiling light.
