SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic - Exercise 2

In this exercise, you create a new electrical project from a template and open its properties to enter personal data. You then manipulate project elements such as books and drawings. Finally, you create a new template from the modified project.

Creating an Electrical Project

  1. Click Home > Electrical Project .
  2. In the Electrical Project Management dialog box, click New .
  3. In the Create a new project dialog box, under Select the project template to be used, select IEC and click OK.
  4. In the Project language dialog box, under Select project language, select English and click OK.
  5. In the Electrical Project dialog box, enter Training as the title for the project, and click OK.

    The new electrical project is created and appears in the Pages panel.

Editing Project Properties

  1. If the Electrical Project Management dialog box is not already open, click Home > Electrical Project.
  2. In the Electrical Project Management dialog box, select the Training project and click Properties .
  3. In the Electrical Project dialog box, enter properties for the project such as the following, and click OK.
Property Value
Contract number 123456
Customer name Dassault Systèmes
Address 1 76430
Address 2 St Romain
Address 3 France
Design office name Your company
Address 1 Your ZIP code
Address 2 Your city
Address 3 Your phone number
Description Line 1 Project for training

Configuring the Project Language

A project must be open in the Pages panel for you to access its configuration.

  1. In the Pages panel, right-click the project and click Configurations > Electrical Project .
  2. In the Electrical Project Configuration dialog box, on the General tab, under Project languages, select English as the Main language and specify your language as the Second language, then click OK.

    The project is updated.

Managing Electrical Project Elements

This section shows some examples of modifications you can make to the elements of an electrical project.

To modify the properties of the book:

  1. In the Pages panel, right-click 1 - Document book and click Properties.
  2. Enter properties, such as the following, and then click OK.
    Property Value
    Description My book
    User Data 1 (Drawn by) A.B.
    User Data 2 (Date) 07/09/2023

To change the User Data label, click Customize. In the left part of the dialog box, select User Data 1 and in the right part, enter the correct label (Drawn by) in the languages you want to use. Repeat the operation for User Data 2.

To create a drawing:

Do one of the following:

  • In the Pages panel, right-click1 - My book and click New > Scheme.
  • Click Electrical project > New > New scheme.

The new drawing is added at the end of the list of electrical project elements.

To move the drawing in the list:

  • Drag it to the desired location.

To delete the drawing:

In the Pages panel, do one of the following:

  • Select the drawing and press Delete.
  • Right-click the drawing and click Delete.

You can add an external data file to a project either by copying the file into the project or by creating a shortcut (link) to the file. If you create a shortcut, you can modify the original file later and the document in the project remains up to date.

To add an external data file:

  1. In the Pages panel, right-click 1 - My book, click New, and click either Data files or Data file shortcuts.
  2. In C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS Electrical\Documentation\EN select ExcelAutomation_EN.pdf and click Open.

Creating an Electrical Project Template

You can use an electrical project template to create a new electrical project. Before you create a new template from an electrical project you need to delete any project elements that you do not want to integrate into the template. In this exercise, you delete the Drawings list drawing and renumber the other drawings.

To create an electrical project template:

  1. In the Pages panel, right-click 02 - Drawings list, click Delete, and click OK.
  2. Repeat step 1 to delete the data file or data file shortcut you added above.
  3. Right-click 1- My Book and click Renumber documents.
  4. In the Document renumbering dialog box, click Recalculate order numbers, click OK, and then click Yes in the message box.
  5. Click Home > Electrical Project .

    In the Electrical Project Management dialog box, Save as template is unavailable. You must first close the electrical project.

  6. Select the project and click Close .
  7. Click Save as template , enter Training as the name for the template, and click OK.

    The Archive message box shows the progress of the template creation process.

  8. In the message box that informs you that the archive is complete, click No.

The template is created and is available in the list of templates when you create a new project.