AutoCAD Electrical 2021 – Fixing Potential Cross Reference Errors

by Miles Nicholson

The following video shows you how to resolve potential cross reference issues with your projects. These can occur, for example, when drawings or part of drawings are brought in from other CAD/CAE systems and/or network issues where the drawings have a level of inconsistency. It shows you how to perform a project wide AUDIT, DWGAUDIT, Component Cross Reference and Update Signal References.

Audit:

This command is required when you believe the drawing file has been corrupted. This can occur when bringing in objects that have been created using non-Autodesk products where the DWG file has not been created 100% correctly, or when you may have experienced computer issues which have resulted in crashes amongst other things. Auditing a file generates a description of problems with a drawing file and recommendations for correcting them. As you start the audit, you specify whether you want the program to try to fix the problems it encounters. You can also fix all issues.

DWG Audit:

Using this command generally depends on whether you have been using AutoCAD commands rather than AutoCAD Electrical commands. It resolves issues with wire gap pointers, bogus wire number and colour/gauge label pointers, wire number floaters and zero length wires all of which are usually caused by using AutoCAD move, stretch or delete. If you haven’t used any of these commands, then you can generally miss this command.

Component Cross-Reference:

Using this command generally depends on whether you have been using AutoCAD commands rather than AutoCAD Electrical commands. It refreshes all component cross-references on parent/child devices throughout the project/drawing or selected components and is usually required after using AutoCAD move, stretch or delete particularly with components that have cross-reference information. Component cross-reference issues can also occur when drawings haven’t been saved or where manually editing has been performed by the user.

Update Signal References:

Using this command generally depends on whether you have been using AutoCAD commands rather than AutoCAD Electrical commands. It refreshes all wire signal cross-references on source/destination arrows throughout the project/drawing or selected signals and is usually required after using AutoCAD move, stretch or delete when wire signal arrows are involved. Wire signal cross-reference issues can also occur when drawings haven’t been saved or where manually editing has been performed by the user.