topic Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components in AutoCAD Electrical Forum

Maintain wire connections when moving components

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:06:52 GMT

Hello,

I have just started using ACADE 2016 and I have a few frustrations. The one that is getting me the most though is the loss of wire connections with my connectors when I move the connector.

I would like to maintain all wire connections and simply move the connector or component to another area on the screen, possibly even rotate it. Is there a way to do this?

I've tried the move component, move circuit, move, scoot, functions... nothing maintains my connections.

My wires are made by using the Multiple Bus command in the Insert Wires box. I then pick the pins on one connector and drag over to the pins on the other connector.

There has got to be a way to maintain these connections, right?

Thanks,

Peter

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

jseefdrumr — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 11:30:40 GMT

I use ACADE 2015, but I'm still pretty sure that what you want isn't a feature in your version. In fact, I'm tempted to say that this is a functionality that would be hard to implement in ACADE.

ACADE is built on top of plain ol' Vanilla ACAD. One way to think of an ACADE wire, is as an ACAD line with some data occasionally attached to it. All the command AEWIRE does (which is essentially the basis for all wire commands I believe), is draw ACAD lines within certain constraints - such as forcing an endpoint to be at a wire connection point, or to be at a 45 degree angle, etc.

There's more to it than that, but for the purposes of this illustration: Don't expect an ACADE wire to do anything a regular line wouldn't do in Vanilla ACAD.

ACADE is wonderful for the way it brings 'intelligence' to the schematic. But wires are probably the least intelligent entity in the software. My suggestion would be to place your connectors first and get them situated, before drawing wires and connecting them to other things.

Hope this helps,

Jim

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:05:36 GMT

Thanks, Jim.
I can honestly say that I am shocked that the engineers at AutoDesk have not thought that this would be an important thing to implement. How much does this program cost again? It's 2016, we can put robots on Mars but can't get a wire to hold its connection in a software program? Sounds extremely lazy to me. Every other drawing program I have used has this capability. Even Microsoft Visio does it!

The intelligence is nice, but if it takes me more time to re-layout a schematic because wires become unattached when I move a part, it is no longer a cost effective solution and I should have just purchased MS Visio for $300.

So if I add a component to a circuit for added functionality I essentially have to erase everything and start over instead of rearranging components?
AutoCAD has always been behind the times but this is a ridiculous miss.

Sorry for the rant, I just expected more core capabilities from ACADE.

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

Icemanau — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 22:41:31 GMT

The question I have is HOW are you moving the components?

I've moved components by using the scoot tool and it retains the wire connections to the components (connectors included).

Using the Move component tool, it does loose the connection but that is how it's supposed to work as it's assumed you are moving it to a different wire.

I don't think there is anything else to move components apart from the plain ACAD commands. Using those is guaranteed to not maintain the wire connections.

Regards Brad

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:50:51 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion, Brad. I tried that already with no luck.

Scoot only allows you to move the connector in the direction of the wires entering the connector. It will not allow you to move the connector perpendicular to the wire run, which is really what I'm after.

Thanks,

Pete

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

rhesusminus — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 01:41:44 GMT

Hi Peter.

I understand what you're saying, that "all others" have this feature. In the case of Visio, "glue" is built into the core graphics engine. Other ecad software also have their own graphic engine created from the beginning, making them able to fully control the development of the features.

When it comes to AcadE, it's was originally a third party application, built on top of AutoCAD. At the time, AutoCAD didn't have this "glue" functionality, but AutoCAD HAS that functionality now. Don't remember exactly what release it was introduced in. It's called parametric constraints. Have a look here: http://autode.sk/2cnQVi2

But, to automagically make the wires you draw "glue" to the connection points and so on, take more than a few lines of code. It might be implementet some time, I don't know...

If it's important to you... go ahead and play around with it now.

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

Icemanau — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 00:27:18 GMT

I assume that you don't want the entire wire moving up or down to follow the component either.

If you click on the wire with scoot it will allow the entire wire to move up and down.

For a small segment to the component, I've always had to draw at least one small leg off the main rung in the direction I want to go, trim the wire going to the component and then use the MOVE COMPONENT tool to move the component to the end of the new leg.

The reason I trim the short section going to the component is that the Move Component command will join the two wires and if present, delete one of the two wire numbers.

Regards Brad

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 12:11:06 GMT

Thanks, Trond. That is exactly what I need. Unfortunately it only applies to ACADE 2017 and I am running 2016.
I understand software development is never as easy as it should be but I still would have expected this functionality in the second release of the program. As much as I like the import to Inventor function, the frustration with this program for seemingly simple tasks outweighs it's usefulness. It's unfortunate that Visio is better at schematic layout than a dedicated electrical schematic program.

"For a small segment to the component, I've always had to draw at least one small leg off the main rung in the direction I want to go, trim the wire going to the component and then use the MOVE COMPONENT tool to move the component to the end of the new leg.

The reason I trim the short section going to the component is that the Move Component command will join the two wires and if present, delete one of the two wire numbers."
Brad, Don't you think that's a little ridiculous that you have to go through all of those steps just to move a connector?

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

rhesusminus — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 12:30:13 GMT

Just a quick note... Geometric constraints was actually introduced in AutoCAD 2010.

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

Icemanau — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:14:18 GMT

I don't think that's a ridiculous number of steps to move something.

If I have to move a block up or down instead of along the wire, I prefer to move the entire wire/rung.

On the occasions that I need to move just that component, it's usually because the client has stated that they want something else in that position and the other component in parallel. Some clients can be very pedantic (**** retentive in other words) about some things.

As ACADE does not have a tool to only move PART of a wire, then other steps need to be taken. The steps I outlined are the quickest I have found that preserves any existing wire numbering present on the wire/s in question.

Regards Brad

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

wesley_saunders — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 08:09:15 GMT

Good day Trond

I have installed the latest AutoCAD Electrical 2018 and I cannot reproduce the screencast you have shared above.

"Scooting" components work but only linearly along the wire. If I want to reposition or move the component as you demonstrate, the connections break?

Is there some setting I need to change in order to enable this feature? I have been struggling now for days with this.

Many thanks

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

rhesusminus — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:50:04 GMT

That is because I'm using a specially prepared drawing, with constraints set for the wires. So, I'm using the MOVE command, and not the SCOOT command.

You won't be able to do this for normal AutoCAD Electrical drawings...

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

wesley_saunders — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:56:45 GMT

Thank you for your response!

I have tested adding parametric constraints and it works well, just time consuming.

I am currently Inserting Connectors (from list) in .xml format and wiring automatically via "Wire it"- is it possible to specify the parametric constraints as a field in the .xml file?

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

rhesusminus — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 09:58:50 GMT

Unfortunately no 😞

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:33:10 GMT

I am now learning Autocad Electrical 2018 and I was shocked to realize the same thing. The wires do not stay attached while moving a component. This is an unbelievable huge waste of time.

Previously, I have been using National Instruments Multisim for 30 years and from day one the wires stay attached to a component while moving.

Chris

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

vince.krueger — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:13:41 GMT

If I remember correctly MultiSim is a fully object based application. AutoCAD uses an Attribute system that is HEAVILY dependent on the naming of the attributes to determine functionality (including direction) in order to have the Electrical portion work nicely with the base package. If AutoCAD Electrical was a completely separate software then the results would probably be more like MultiSim. Different starting points results in different results.

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

Ray_JosephAG5BC — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 12:50:22 GMT

Thank you for the very informative presentations. Quite helpful.

You mentioned that you use a specially prepared drawing. What type of drawing preparations does it take to do this?

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

rhesusminus — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 13:44:46 GMT

It's just a tedious thing to do, to "glue" those lines. However, AutoCAD Electrical probably won't understand those wires, so ignore this post 😕

Re: Maintain wire connections when moving components

sdAFSC8 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:42:48 GMT

As a newbie, the inability to simply move components whilst retaining connectivity (similar to Visio or any number of free programs out there) has proven too much. The business has recently invested in Autocad for the premise of schematic generation and mapping of core electrical functions. In this it has failed dramatically. I'll be recommending we move to a different tool.

No one has time to redraw an entire diagram just because portions of it might require some movement beyond one direction (aka scoot) . This isn't the 70's anymore!