Editting Blocks

[ziemerd]

I have a block of a relay that is inserted several times in my drawing. I want to change the line color of one of those blocks so I exploded the block, changed the color, then remade the block by going to Draw -> Block -> Make. I typed in the name of my block then clicked Selct Objects and selected all the objects then clicked ok. It told me there was already a block and asked if I wanted to update the definition and the block references and I clicked Yes. Then it asked for and insertion point and I clicked on the center and then all my blocks were updated.

 

Is there a way to just change one block without updating all the blocks in my drawing?

[dbroada]

simple answer - no. A block definition is used for ALL blocks of that type. There are ways around it though. The simplest being to make the colour of that line "ByBlock" and then set the block's colour.

[uddfl]

If all you want to change is colors, and want to control that by individual block instances, you can manipulate that by changing the color of the entities inside the block to "byblock".

 

If you need to change the geometry, you can use Dynamic Blocks (not sure if available in ACAD Electrical), which allow you to change the geometry of individual instances of the same block.

 

Or, you can do it the traditional way and create a new block with a different name for the variant of the block (which is what a dynamic block does but in a fancy way).

[Ritch7]

no their is no proper way to do it because they are all linked.

[ziemerd]

Thanks everyone. I think I'm going to create two of each block, one with red lines and one with black lines then the block can just be replaced with the block that has the proper color.

[ziemerd]

Ok...I got it. I wasn't sure how to use the ByBLOCK thingy but I figured it out. The block needs to have all it's objects on layer 0 and the color byblock. Then I can insert it into the drawing and change the color of the entire block without disturbing any other blocks. It works for us.