Discover the method of adding ceiling lights and connecting them to switches in a drafting design plan. Understand the process of how and where to place these symbols, make adjustments and represent the electrical wiring using splines.
Key Insights
- The article explains the way to incorporate ceiling light symbols in an electrical plan and how to visually connect them with switch symbols, demonstrating the significance of placing these symbols in approximately correct locations.
- It further highlights the importance of using splines, represented as wavy lines, which serve as a flexible method to denote the electrical wiring between lights and switches. This approach ensures that the contractor is not restricted to a specific path for the wiring installation.
- Moreover, the article emphasizes the necessity of adjusting other elements, such as text annotations, in the drawing while adding these symbols, thereby preserving the clarity and accuracy of the plan.
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In this video, we will add our ceiling lights and the Splines that connect them to our switches. In this case, our ceiling lights are not ceiling fixtures, but rather symbols—just like our switch symbols and outlet symbols.
These symbols should be placed in the roughly appropriate location in our rooms, but once again, these do not have to be perfect, as there are no dimensions associated with this Electrical Plan. As we add our symbols, we might need to adjust our text or potentially other geometry on the screen. In this case, it's just our text, as it is the only other annotation object in this drawing.
So let's begin. I'm going to take a look at the handout, and I'll see that there are two ceiling lights in the middle of each bedroom—one here, of course, and one here. Now, in a previous video, we added our bedroom text directly into that location because we didn't think about our ceiling lights.
So before I add my ceiling lights, I'm going to grab both bits of this text, and using the Control + Up Arrow keys, I will nudge it out of the way. This still leaves the text roughly in the middle of the room, but it gets it out of the way of where the lights are going to go—and more importantly, the Splines connecting them to the light switches. What are these Splines? Well, they're simply a way to represent the electrical wiring that connects which light to which switch.
We make it a wavy line so that it's obvious it is not built geometry or intended to be installed that way. If we drew it as a Polyline—straight over and straight over—the contractor might think that is the exact path to follow. By drawing it as a Spline, it allows the contractor some freedom in deciding where exactly the electrical wiring should run.
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Now that that's done, let's place our ceiling light symbols. I can choose the Ceiling Light Block, and in this case, I want to place it roughly in the middle of the room. I can line it up with my closet wall here and click, and I'll do the same over here, and click.
Next, in the bathroom—again, roughly in the middle of the room—and we'll move this text out of the way in a minute. Click. And then in the family room. These three lights are in a line, so I'll place one to start, and then we'll copy that one in a second.
Escape, Escape, Escape. Now I'm going to nudge this "Bath" text out of the way. Nudge it over, and nudge it down.
Perfect. Zoom Extents, Control+S to save. Before we forget, let's copy this light over.
I'm going to make sure that I turn on Ortho so that these are copied in a line, and I will go Copy, selecting this light fixture. Enter to lock it in. This is a distance-and-direction copy, so I can click anywhere on my screen, drag to the left, and I'll copy this 4 feet—Enter—and then 8 feet—Enter. Escape, Escape, Escape.
In this case, I want to move all of these lights down just a bit, including the family room text. So I'll grab them all with a selection window, use Control + Down Arrow just to slide them down a little bit, and I can even select the family room text and nudge it further out of the way. Zoom Extents, Control+S to save.
Now, there are three more light fixtures we still need to add—one in the hallway here, and two: one at the back door and one at the front door. Now, those are touching the wall, but not from the Block insertion point, which is in the middle of the circle. So, I'll place one out in space here and one out in space here, and then we’ll move them in a second.
Ceiling Light—one right here in front of the sink, one here, and one there. Now I can move those back to touch the wall. I’ll go Move, select my symbol, Enter to lock it in, Shift + Right-click → Endpoint will be my first snap.
We can turn Ortho off, and I’ll place this one using Nearest on the wall here. Pan over, and I’ll do the same with the next one. Move, pick my symbol, Enter to lock it in, Shift + Right-click → Endpoint, and place it here. Zoom Extents, Control+S to save.
Finally, let’s draw our Splines. Remember, the rule for Splines is: the fewer points used, the better. In this case, I want to turn back on my Endpoint snap, and I can turn off Nearest. One last thing we need to remember is to change our active Layer.
We are done inserting Blocks, and now we want to draw—so we want to go to the E-POWR Layer. All right, let's draw our Splines.
I’m going to draw these with Spline Fit, and remember, you can draw these however you want. Just remember that they shouldn’t be straight lines and should use as few points as possible. I’ll go Endpoint here, here, and here. Enter to say I’m done, and Enter to go back in.
I’m just going to go around continuing to draw these Splines. This one connects to these three lights from the bottom switch. Enter to go back in, Enter, Enter, Enter, Enter. This one curves around the door. Enter. Enter to go back in.
Again, I’m going to use this one to go outside—Enter to lock it in—and this one to come up to our hall light—Enter to lock it in. This bathroom one is a little tight, but that’s okay—we can make it work. Perfect.
Zoom Extents, Control+S to save. In the next video, we will create the E100 sheet file and print the E100 sheet. I’ll see you there.
