By Miles Nicholson
If you get the above error when creating a new parametric PLC in the PLC database, it’s because AutoCAD® Electrical is expecting key words in the Description of the device.
The category field is used to define whether the PLC is an input, output or combination / other PLC. It is an automatically populated field based on wildcard strings of the Description of the PLC. In the database an input=1, output=2 and combination=3. If one of the modules in the PLC database has a blank value, it will bring the above error message up.
There isn’t a “category” field within the Module Specifications dialogue but AutoCAD® Electrical looks at the description value of the PLC and assigns the category based on the wildcards listed below:
As an example, if you created a “24VDC Distribution Module” you would need to either add the word “*distribution*” into the wildcard strings or define the description of the PLC with “*other*” for it to be assigned a category.