Hi Robert,
I don't find "Add/Edit Terminal Jumper". Are you referring to "Add/Edit Internal Jumper"? This appears to be a way to add internal connections from one terminal to another 'within' a single component. I would prefer to define this explicitly once for a given component, but that would make the symbol dedicated for that component, usually. Say you have a 'black-box' type symbol with six terminals, and for a certain component, two of the terminals are interconnected internally. Let's suppose the symbol does not allow you to wire from the 'internal' side of each terminal, but you could draw a dumb line between each terminal on the inside of the component to indicate visually that there is an internal connection. To make ACADE aware of the internal connection, you would need to create an 'internal jumper' This jumper will not show up on drawings, but it will connect the signals and change the way auto-wire numering would work. (In short, there is no useful way to use "Add/Edit Internal Jumper with a single terminal. If you have a symbol with multiple terminals that represents a terminal strip, then you could use it in that case.)
My Terminal Jumper system:
At my current company, they like to show a symbol for each connection point on a terminal block AND show all of the internal connections on the schematic. So for a double-level through terminal block, there would be four teminal symbols, all using the same Tag. The tag would be something like TS1-101, indicating terminal block number 101 of terminal strip 1. These terminals would be assigned the corresponding part number from the catalog, which would result in a pinlist attribute being assigned to the first terminal, because a pinlist has been defined in the pinlist database for each terminal part number in our catalog. Therefore, each terminal symbol in my drawing has a visible Tag and 'Pin' attribute. We define 'a priori' what wire positions on a terminal will correspond to which pin numbers in a drawing, and then it is up to me to 'intelligently' design the drawing such that a given wire connects to the 'best' 'pin' on the terminal block. In short, this scheme allows me to precisely assign each wire on a drawing to a specific connection point on each terminal. (This is great for some things, but it is overkill and over-designing, in my opinion, when it comes to designing the average backpanel in a factory automation system. On the other hand, it makes it very easy to trace wire faults in the field, and it also makes it easy to see at design-time if I am trying to stuff three wires into one terminal connection, when I am only supposed to allow one wire per connection.)
Since I want my terminal jumpers to be visible on the schematic, and to be active in the signal/auto-wire numbering system in AE, I just use AE 'wire' for my jumpers. But I have created a layer called "WIRE_TERM_JUMPER", and I have set the layer's color, line-weight, and linetype to be unique, so that there is visual feedback on the printed drawing that a given wire represents a jumper. I also use layers called "WIRE_TERM_INTERNAL" and "WIRE_INTERNAL" in similar ways. I use the WIRE_TERM_INTERNAL layer with a dashed linetype for wire that represents the internal paths between connection points on a single terminal. One great thing about this more-involved scheme is that AE knows how to pass signal and wire-numbers through all of my terminals correctly, and you can sort and filter wire to-from lists such that internal wires are ignored, all real wire connections are listed in order, and all terminal jumper connections are plainly indicated in the same list.
Of course, since I am literally showing each connection point on each terminal, this works well for me. If I were using a single terminal symbol to represent multiple terminal connection points, or even multiple terminals in the case of a series of terminal blocks jumpered together, then the jumpers used would only be implied. This is the case when you show a ladder diagram with 20 rungs and only one set of terminal symbols at the top of the ladder. There is no way to physically indicate the quantity of jumpers in the schematic in this case. In the past, I relied on the electrical tech doing the wiring to 'know' that a ladder represented a series of terminals jumpered together, and to build the backpanel accordingly. We never even supplied terminal diagrams or anything resembling a true 'wiring diagram'. Only the ladder-style schematic.
- Jay