Cables

On the Cabling tab, in the Cables group, the Manager Tool button opens the Cable Manager dialog. Here, you can create cables and route them in the 3D model. The cable creation process can utilize existing cable data that has been defined, for example, in CADMATIC Electrical or CADMATIC P&ID. However, you also have the option to create new cables manually.

To begin, define the cable router settings and generate a cable routing network (comprising nodes and segments) for cable way objects: cable trays, cable pipes, and cable penetrations.

After creating the cable routing network, you can start creating cables and routing them in the 3D model. You can use either automatic or manual routing for this. In the 3D model, the cables travel via the nodes and segments of the network. The ends of the cables are connected to the electrical nodes of the specified "head" and "tail" equipment, or to virtual nodes that act as placeholders until the actual equipment is modeled.

If the 3D layout of the cable ways changes, you may need to recreate the cable routing network to match the new layout. If there are already some routed cables at this point, the program will attempt to automatically adjust the existing cable routes based on the locations of the nodes and segments in the new network.

The cable router monitors the fill rate of all the segments to ensure their maximum capacity is not exceeded. You can run a diagnostics tool to see which alternative routes the automatic routing has rejected and the reasons for these rejections.

Once the cable routing is complete, fill rate views can be generated from the 3D model and incorporated into Plant Modeller drawings. In addition, the lengths of pre-cut cables and the cable pulling routes can be exported as listings.