Broken/jagged wire instead of straight

[Anonymous]

When I trying to make a wire from one component to another with two straight lines I get a jagged lines. Why is that?

I draw the wire from contact to relay:

          

  and when I want to conect to component I get this:

                       or this                         

Why drawing wire is not like a drawing line in AutoCAD?

I use AutoCAD Electrical 2016 on Windows 10.

Thanks.

[jseefdrumr]

Well...it sort of looks like what's happening there is, the software sees that the symbol you're using (1KF1) is set up to only accept a wire that is approaching from below. ACADE is smart enough to reroute the wire you're drawing so that it connects correctly. That's why it's hooking the wire around to approach it from the side and finishing it out with an angled line.

Has this symbol been rotated after placement? Is it a custom symbol or one that has been edited?

If you open up the block file for that symbol, at the location for the wire connection there will be an X?TERM attribute. Make sure that it says X2TERM?? (the ?? will be the terminal number).

The X?TERM attribute is also called the wire connection attribute. It tells ACADE that this is the spot for a wire to land, AS WELL AS which direction the wire will approach from. You can only connect a wire to that attribute from that one direction.

X1TERM=wire approaches from right
X2TERM=wire approaches from top
X4TERM=wire approaches from left
X8TERM=wire approaches from below

Imagine you have a square symbol. It has a wire connection point on each side. The right side of the symbol needs to use X1TERM. The bottom side of the symbol needs to use X8TERM.

Now imagine that you rotated the symbol 90 degrees clockwise. This puts the X1TERM on the bottom of the square. But, that wire connection only wants to see a wire that approaches from the right. No matter how you try to draw a wire to the bottom of the symbol after rotating, it won't just go straight up to it; ACADE will do the behavior you're witnessing to force the wire to come in from the side it's 'supposed' to come from. That's why I asked if the symbol had been rotated.

You can verify whether a symbol's been rotated -- even if someone else did it -- by looking at it in PROPERTIES. Any value other than 0.0000 means it was rotated after placement.

Hope this helps,

**EDIT** I should add that, if you do open the block file to see that the X?TERM is, me saying that it should be X2TERM is predicated on the symbol never having been rotated after placement.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, I check what you wrote and report.

[Anonymous]

This symbol is rotated before placement. I pick it up from insert component menu, rotate 90 degrees, and put it down.

I tried with other type of relay and it was the same. And a wire below disappear when I put relay down. The wire trim herself. When I tried to insert new wire i get this:

     

When I tried with unrotated relay I get this:

 

I think that there is something more serious then simply rotating. It is quite unproffesional to look like this.

The other case is when I first insert wire and then put the relay on it. In that case everything is OK.

Problem is that I can´t always drow the wire first.

[TRLitsey]

Hi there,

Just thought I would as about drawing the wire first then inserting.  The wire does not need to be connected to components, floating in space would be fine for the moment.  I ask this because I did not see you mention it so I have to ask, you do realize the out of the box symbols do not all rotate when you insert them, right.  If you select a contact to insert on a horz wire ACE will use a symbol that starts with the letter H but if you insert the same contact on a vert wire ACE uses the symbol that starts with V.  ie horiz = HCR01 where as vert = VCR01 and they both have attribute position and type set for the specific orientation.

Good luck

[Anonymous]

---

@TRLitsey wrote:
  If you select a contact to insert on a horz wire ACE will use a symbol that starts with the letter H but if you insert the same contact on a vert wire ACE uses the symbol that starts with V.  ie horiz = HCR01 where as vert = VCR01 and they both have attribute position and type set for the specific orientation.

---

I know that. I said, when I put component on wire is OK.

Puting wire on component is problem. Why wire does not adapt to component?

[Icemanau · Accepted solution]

The problem is caused due to you ROTATING the block...

As has been stated, ACADE has two different versions of each block. Each version of the block is set up so that the wires come in from the correct direction. Wire connection direction is set via attribute names for each direction.

When you manually rotate the block, these names are not changed so ACADE tries it's best to connect to the block according to it's programming.

To fix the problem, you need to remove the wires and then the block itself. Redraw the wires in the correct location and THEN insert the block (without rotating it) on the wire. ACADE will insert the correct block according to the wire direction which, as you have noted, works properly.

If you then select the block and check it's properties for the file name and compare that to one of the other relay blocks you will see that they are different file names. The difference being the 'H' or 'V' at the front of the file name.

Now for the bonus information. The Insert Component menu has a tick box in the bottom left corner which selects the opposite orientation of the block you want to insert from the dwg standard. That standard is set by the Ladder Default on the Drawing Format tab in the Drawing Properties. If the Ladder default is Horizontal (like yours probably is) then the tick box is labelled 'Vertical' however if the setting is vertical, then the box is labelled 'Horizontal'.

Be Aware that this check box is carried forward to the next insertion in the session. This means that if you set it for one block, you need to remove the set for the next block unless you want it to be inserted in the different orientation as well.

Regards Brad

[testsubject · Accepted solution]

It almost looks like you are using the NFPA 79 settings with the IEC library.

By default, the NFPA 79 library inserts horizontally, the IEC Library inserts vertically.

Under Drawing Properties/Drawing Format verify what the Ladder Defaults is set to. For IEC this needs to be set to Horizontal. My guess is that it is set to vertical.

You can also change this project wide by changing this setting in the Project Properties.

[Anonymous]

Test subject and Icemanau you guessed it

I know to set all properties, but I didn`t know connection between setting ladder and drawing wires. I don`t use ladders, I prefer to put components first and then draw the wires.

Thank you very much, I knew it is a matter of setting, but I don`t know what setting.

 My test - 1KF1 and his wires are drawn in Vertical ladder setting and rotated. Then I change ladder default to horizontal and insert 1KF2 and drawn his wires.

Icemanau, thanks for detailed explanation

Test subject, thanks for simplyfied explanation