Autocad Production Drawings

Hi, I have a Product Line where I have the basic Production drawings for each type of product. The dimensions are all formula based off the height and width of the door product we have. I have these formulas written in excel.

Is there any way that I can cause the dimensions on the drawings to change when the dimensions in excel change? I dont need it to redraw the picture, I just need the dimensions to say whatever is calculated by the excel formulas. Thanks

Just to clarify you want to just change the actual numbers of the dimensions displayed on the drawing. So say you had a box that was 2m by 2m as drawn in the drawing but then you wanted to make a box 4m by 4m. You just want to update an excel sheet which would change the displayed dimensions to 4m by 4m but the box in the drawing would still be 2m by 2m.

If thats right I'm afraid that I don't know how to do what you are looking to do.

However I feel I should caution you against doing this if indeed this is what you are looking to do.

In my experience this is bad practice. We had a similar situation where I work. Instead of redrafting a drawing an engineer here used to just change the length displayed on the drawing by overwritting it. This gave rise to a lot of problems both when he was here and down the line. When others needed to make changes things got messy. Also when we subcontracted out parts to be laser cut they were all wrong. After a lot of headaches we ended up having to redraft everything from scratch.

In my experience this is bad practice. We had a similar situation where I work. Instead of redrafting a drawing an engineer here used to just change the length displayed on the drawing by overwritting it. This gave rise to a lot of problems both when he was here and down the line. When others needed to make changes things got messy. Also when we subcontracted out parts to be laser cut they were all wrong. After a lot of headaches we ended up having to redraft everything from scratch.

Good Lord tell me about! Last place I worked I just couldn't get it across to the engineers why drawings should always be drawn to scale. He said that the folks that made the product knew what the company wanted because they had been making the product for them for 25 years. I told him if they ever wanted to use a different/cheaper manufacturer their drawings would be useless. Also explained the liability issue. He went away scratching his head. About 6 months later we got a new division manager and he made it a priority to find a cheaper mfg. Everything had to be redrawn - I owe a lot of gray hairs to that bunch of engineers!

Hi, I have a Product Line where I have the basic Production drawings for each type of product. The dimensions are all formula based off the height and width of the door product we have. I have these formulas written in excel.

Is there any way that I can cause the dimensions on the drawings to change when the dimensions in excel change? I dont need it to redraw the picture, I just need the dimensions to say whatever is calculated by the excel formulas. Thanks

Why don't you look into dynamic blocks using 'look up' feature. It would be a lot better to have those drawings to scale. Good luck.

In my experience this is bad practice. We had a similar situation where I work. Instead of redrafting a drawing an engineer here used to just change the length displayed on the drawing by overwritting it. This gave rise to a lot of problems both when he was here and down the line. When others needed to make changes things got messy. Also when we subcontracted out parts to be laser cut they were all wrong. After a lot of headaches we ended up having to redraft everything from scratch.

I find the same problems on some older drawings.

Then, the drawing has to be fixed before it can be used, or part of the drawing used for current work.

Awful!