VBA...is it right for this?

[jshambles3]

Hello,
I am trying to create a wire analysis application and I'm not sure if Excel the right choice for this.

I will try to explain what it is that I am trying to accomplish.

Using imported data from a csv file, I want to be able to trace a circuit from end-to-end. Sometimes this will be directly from one device to another, and sometimes the circuit will travel through an inline connector.

I'm having troubles trying to figure out how to pull this information out of the csv file.

The csv file contains the following information:
Wire Name, From Connector, From Cavity, To Connector, To Cavity, Color, Length, Wire Size

Would anyone have any advice as to how to get started with piecing this information together?

 

[Gerald Higgins]

Hi, welcome to the board.

Can you post some of your data please, together with an example of what exactly you want this to do ?

It sounds like your data is going to consist of lots of lines of data, with one device per row, and you want to trace whether or not the devices make a complete circuit - is that right ?
If yes, please make sure your posted sample data includes an example of several rows of data where it does make a complete circuit, and be sure to include an explanation of exactly how you would determine that the circuit should be identified as complete.

 

[jshambles3]

The csv files that I would be working with could contain information like the following
Name,Component 1,Connector 1,Pin 1,Component 2,Connector 2,Pin 2,Color,Length,Wire CSA
0010A, ,C18, A, ,XG5,47, BK, 470, 0.8
0010B, ,C19, A, XX12, 4, BK, 395, 0.8

Using the example data above, I would like to be able to determine that 0010A travels from device XG5, cavity 47, through the inline connectors C18, cavity A and C19, cavity A, and ends at device XX12, cavity 4.
All inline connector designators start with "C". All device designations start with "X".

My thought was that I would need to create some sort of lookup table that defines which inline connectors get mated together (in this case C18 and C19).

The end goal of all of this is to be able to load an entire vehicles worth of wire routings and calculate voltage drops, where wire sizes need to increase/decrease, and the cost of each.

Thank you.

 

[Gerald Higgins]

OK.

I tried copying your data into a spreadsheet and using Data, Text to Columns, to break it up, and using the comma delimiter, noticed that the format is inconsistent for the two lines.
Note on line 1, the two commas between A and XG5 . . .
and on line 2, the single comma between A and XX12.

Is this a problem for you ?
Or is there perhaps some other delimiter that you can use ?
Or is the data all fixed width ?
If you're not sure what I mean by all this, please shout.

Moving on to the data, it might help if we try and be consistent about the field names.
In your narrative, you refer to "Device" and "Cavity" but neither of these terms appear in your actual data.
Is "Device" the same as "Component 2" ?
Is "Cavity" the same as "Connector 1" ? Or perhaps "Connector 2" ?

Sorry if this sounds pedantic, but I'm not an electrician and neither I suspect are many people on this board.
That's probably not a problem, because this is most likely essentially a data challenge rather than an electrical engineering challenge.
But we just need to be clear exactly what we're talking about.

Next question.
How do we know that C18 and C19 are in fact connected to each other at all ?