In this video, we're going to look at placing electrical objects.
We're going to start by looking at the electrical defaults and what this means
for placing electrical objects. Throughout the video,
we will be looking at how the electrical tools work. And finally,
we will look at some supplemental tools and techniques to maximize your
efficiency when working with the electrical objects and tools.
When placing electrical objects and creating electrical plans,
it is recommended to be in the electrical plan view. So in my top toolbar,
I'm going to switch my plan view from the working plan view to the electrical
plan view,
which will change my layer set and optimize the program's tools such as the
dimensioning and notation tools for working on electrical tasks.
If we go up to the electrical tools, parent tool in our top toolbar,
several electrical child tools become available.
If we wanted to place any of these electrical objects, such as the can light,
we can select the light tool, come over into the plan and click once,
and Chief we'll place a six inch recessed can light into the ceiling.
The electrical tools are smart and know where in the plan you are placing them.
For example, with that same light tool selected.
If I come over to the wall and click once,
Chief will place a sconce light on the wall.
If we zoom out of our 3d view,
so that we're looking at the exterior of the house,
and we select the light tool and click on the exterior side of the wall,
Chief will place an exterior light fixture,
and if we click on the terrain Chief we'll place a path light.
The electrical object that gets placed is coming in based on your default
settings, we can access our default settings by clicking on the wrench icon,
and then going down to electrical and then double clicking on general
electrical. Here,
you can see the default library object that will be placed for the specific
location or scenario.
If you wanted to change the library object that will be used,
you can click on the library button and choose a new object from the library
browser. Additionally, if you want to edit the object,
you can click on this edit button and then edit the object size
or edit the object's light data.
You can also adjust the default height values that the objects will come in at
measured from the center of the fixture to the top of the floor structure.
Notice that outlets come in at 11 and a half inches.
And if we cancel out of this and click on done and then zoom in so that
we're on the interior side of the plan and then select our 110 outlet tool,
and then just come and click on the wall,
Chief will place that outlet 11 and a half inches from the floor structure to
the center of the outlet.
Another thing to note about 110 outlets is that if you needed to change it to a
GFCI outlet, you can select the outlet. And then in the bottom,
there's an edit button right here that you can press to change it to a GFCI
outlet. Let's go ahead and change it to a 110 outlet.
And in the plan view, if we go back up to electrical tools,
you'll notice there's an option here that says auto place outlets.
When you use this tool and click a room Chief will place 110 outlets on the
walls around the entire room spaced that no wall is positioned farther than six
feet from the nearest outlet.
Before using the auto place outlets tool it is important to define your room
types. The reason for this is because in rooms defined as a kitchen or a bath,
Chief will place GFCI outlets over cabinets instead of one 110 volt outlets.
Let's define this room by double clicking on the room
and then going up to room type,
defining it as a kitchen and then click on OK,
and you can see that that room type is defined as a kitchen and next let's use
the auto place outlets tool and click once in the room.
And you can see that Chief has placed GFCI outlets in the room marked as a
kitchen and 110 outlets throughout the rest of the plan.
And one thing to note about the auto outlets tool is that it ignores invisible
walls and railings and will place outlets in any adjacent rooms on the other
side of these walls, like you see here.
Another thing worth noting about the auto place outlets tool is that it does not
work on exterior room types, such as decks. So in this case,
you would just want to manually place outlets. Additionally,
if we take a look at the 3d view and rotate our view,
the auto place outlets tool,
will place a can light above sinks and rooms marked as kitchens and rooms
marked as bathrooms, it will place a wall sconce above the sink.
Let's zoom out a little bit, go back to our plan view.
And the next electrical tool I wanted to go over is the rope light tool.
You can place a rope light by selecting the tool and click and dragging your
mouse through the plan.
If we double-click on the rope light to open it up here,
you can see information about its height off the finished floor,
the distance between the lights and the light display size.
On the light data panel,
you can adjust how intense the lumen brightness should be and on the moldings
panel, you can adjust the shape and size of the rope light.
Let's go ahead and cancel out of this and then just move our rope light so
that's underneath our wall cabinets.
Let's go over some tips for placing can lights.
I've already placed a can light in the plan and I would like to dimension it a
specified distance from the wall. With our electrical plan view,
active,
our dimension defaults are going to be optimized for dimensioning electrical
items. So what I'm going to do is in the plan view,
I'm going to select our dimensioning tools and I'm going to select our
end-to-end dimension,
zoom in over to the side of the plan and dimension from the center of the can
lights to the wall, and then you can do that in the other direction as well.
And the next if I wanted wanted to adjust the position of this can light,
I can simply select it and then select the corresponding dimensions and then
move it into a new position in the plan. Next,
you may want copies of this can light evenly distributed throughout the ceiling.
A quick way to do this is by using the multiple copy tool.
How this works is with the can light selected in the bottom toolbar there's a
tool called the multiple copy tool.
So I'm going to select it and then I'm going to select the multiple copy
interval button.
Here you can specify that you would like to place copies of an object a set
distance apart from one another. So in this example, this setting is,
how they are.
This would place a can light every 24 inches apart from each other as I drag my
mouse across the screen,
or you can specify that you would like a set number of copies evenly distributed
from one another as you move your mouse across the screen.
You can also set both a primary and a secondary offset so that you can create
copies in both the X and Y directions. So in this example,
let's specify that we want three copies of the can light placed in our first
direction and five more copies placed in our second direction.
I'm going to click on, OK and then in our floor plan,
I'm going to move my mouse over the can light and notice how my mouse icon
changes there.
This indicates that I'm ready to use the multiple copy tool and to use both a
primary and a secondary offset,
I'm going to right click and drag my mouse across the screen and there I'm going
to place three copies of the can light in our first direction and then I'm going
to release my mouse and then I'm going to move my mouse in the secondary
direction and place five additional copies that are going to be evenly spaced as
my move, my mouse across the screen.
Once I'm ready to confirm the placement of these can lights,
I can click once and those can lights will be placed in the ceiling. Next,
we need to place a switch to turn on these can lights.
So in our floor plan view,
I'm going to go back up to the electrical tools and there's a tool here called
the switch and I'm going to come over and then I'm just going to place it
against a wall.
Just like with our other electrical tools,
you can double click on the object to open up its specification and adjust its
height or adjust its size.
There's also an option here that says distance from wall.
This can be used to offset the switch,
a specified distance from the wall or recessed into the wall if you use a
negative value. Let's go ahead and cancel out of this. Go back to the plan view.
And the next electrical tool is the connect electrical tool,
which can be used to create circuits and indicate which switches are going to,
which electrical objects.
Using switches and the connect electrical tool you can automatically create
three or four way switches.
Let's go ahead and connect a few more of these can lights together with the
connect electrical tool,
and then go ahead and place a switch on the other side of this wall for
demonstration purposes.
And then if I select the connect electrical tool and then draw an electrical
connection from this can light to the switch,
watch what happens to the switch when I release my mouse.
Chief will automatically switch it to a three-way switch because there's another
switch that can be used to adjust the lights.
There are also a lot of electrical items in the library browser you can use in
your plans.
If you open up the library browser on the right-hand side of the screen and go
to the core catalogs and then go to the architectural objects and
then down to lighting, you can find other lighting objects to use in your plan.
Additionally, if you go down to the mechanical electrical and plumbing folder,
you can find additional electrical items to use. And lastly,
you can download more library content from the Chief Architect,
3D Library over at the Chief Architect website.