Working with Multiple Level Terminals – AutoCAD Electrical

As multi-level terminals grow in popularity, we continue receiving questions about how to make them work in Electrical. Multi-level terminal blocks are unique in that they are represented by multiple schematic symbols but have a single BOM entry and panel footprint.

There is nothing special about the blocks or footprints. The real magic happens in the database. There are a number of extra fields in the default.cat.mdb that store the extra information needed for associating the different levels together.

The Properties

Lets first look at the properties. In this document I am using AutoCAD Electrical 2015. If you have 2014 or older, you will have a slightly different method for getting to these properties. I’ll post some screen grabs at the bottom of this post that show the older tools.

Simply edit a terminal and press Catalog Lookup. Then press the “Edit” button and scroll all the way to the right.

Here you can see the additional properties dedicated to multi level terminals. Modifying them is quite easy. Simply enter the number of levels in the LEVELS cell and then click the button to open the edit terminal property form. Enter all known information and press OK.

To add/modify internal jumpers between the levels, click on the INTERNALJUMPER cell then click the button. Select the levels to jumper and then press the Assign Jumper button.

The Workflow for Associating Terminal Levels Between Symbols

There are a number of ways to create the association between the terminals. In this short tutorial I will only show one. After the symbols have been placed, edit one of them. If multiple levels are present they will be listed in the Edit Terminal dialog.

If no additional levels are present, press Details >> button, and then Catalog Lookup and select a multi-level terminal block.

To create level associations press the Add/Modify button.

From the resulting dialog, select the terminal you wish to associate, then click the level to add it to, and finally press the Associate button.

After the level associations are created, the order of the levels can be modified by using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.

That’s pretty much it. If this was too confusing, or involved too much clicking, terminals can be associated using the right click menu as well. Simply right click, Associate Terminals, and then click the “other” terminal.

Placing/Updating the Terminal Strip will show the new associations.

Terminal Properties For AutoCAD Electrical 2014 and Previous Users

Edit the terminal properties by using the Terminal Properties Database Editor. Look at existing multi-level terminals and note the format needed for each field. (for example 2,2,2)