okay so i spent some time on this after work, and i understand how the code works, so ignore my last post.

char(176) is °
trim removes leading and trailing spaces
substitute just replaces the "(" ")" "°" and " " with ""
indirect references a range

so... if i understand correctly,

make a list for each possible combination of the 3 categories
concatenate each possible combination from the 3 categories as the reference(range name) for each individual list

the code is used to recognize the concatenated combination from the 3 categories and then pulls the appropriate list.

this has worked so far, however. i am now having some trouble with named ranges, i cannot seem to remove the range name from a range i incorrectly named. i was wondering if there is a quick and easy way to highlight the whole set of 12 lists and remove the names to start over. also is there a difference if i changed some of the names from the name box or from the define name tab under formulas?

and one more thing, i would ideally like the lists of available wire type to be dynamic, so if i want to add additional wire types to a specific list, i dont have to change the named range, it will just add automatically. some of the other dependant drop down tables use the offset function to create a dynamic range, how hard would this be to implement?

thanks again for your help.