Red lines
These red lines are ACADE highlighting a wire that has some sort of problem. They are a temporary graphic that goes away if you enter REDRAW or REGEN on the command line. Often, they disappear on their own just by zooming or panning.
You might see these appear in other instances, too. One that I can think of off the top of my head is, when you try to place a wire number copy on a wire that doesn't have a wire number. ACADE will highlight the whole wire as it did in your screenshot so you have some visual indicator of where the problem is. This will be accompanied by either a dialog informing you of the problem, or an entry on your command line telling you of the problem.
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I believe there are some issues with updating source/destination arrows. It seems that they don't always 'remember' their links. I'm not sure what causes that to happen. I don't use source/destination 100% as intended by the software, so some of my update problems could very well be of my own creation. I can say that they seem to behave better if you use 'Real-time Cross Referencing' in your drawing and project properties.
That being said, if you're having trouble establishing the links at the outset, be sure that your information on the destination arrow matches what's in the source arrow EXACTLY. Actually, it's best to pick your source from the dialog box that appears when you place the destination. Other things to be aware of:
*While at first appearances it looks like you can use source/destination on _MULTI_WIRE, they often fail because they are looking for a wire and a wire number attribute.
*Only one destination can exist on a wire. A wire can have multiple sources, though.
*You can't edit a wire number on a wire that has a destination arrow on it. You have to go back to wherever the source arrow is and edit it there.
*You can't add a destination arrow to a wire, if that wire already has a fixed wire number assigned to it.
I rely heavily on source/destination, both for single wires and multiconductor cables (for which you use the Fan-in/Fan-out signals). I typically have at least one signal arrow on every drawing, and sometimes a dozen or more. If you can post a screencast of the problem you have when placing your signal arrows, I or another user here on the forums can help get you together.
Jim Seefeldt
Electrical Engineering Technician
Arlene, sorry it's taken so long to get back to this thread, my job has been keeping me on the road a little bit lately. Here's a walkthrough of how I use signal/destination arrows. Like you, I use these on power distribution sheets to show a power bus as it travels from drawing to drawing. For this purpose, I always have one destination per source. We also have two power drops in every project: input power, and output power. These power feeds are meant for field devices and I/O modules. For these, it's typical for me to have one source paired to up to a dozen or more destinations.
One thing stands out to me from one of your comments, and that is how you deploy fixed wire numbers. It's okay to used fixed wire numbers on the source side, but not on the destination side. If you try to put a destination arrow on a wire that has already been assigned a fixed wire number, ACADE will give you a dialog similar to the one from your first screenshots, where it says it can't place a destination arrow on a network with a fixed wire number. So that's one main thing to be aware of.
Another is the syntax you decide on for your signal codes. It needs to be consistent, just to make it easier on you, but it also needs to match exactly, between source and destination. If, when placing destination arrows, you just use the dialogs provided to you, then you have the option of finding the correct source from a list of all the sources in the project. I always do it like this now because doing them manually kept getting me in trouble - I'd misspell something or not exactly remember how I entered the source. That's the second main thing.
Third, there can only be one source arrow, or one destination arrow, per wire. The dialogs you're showing us imply that you're trying to insert a destination arrow on a wire that already has a destination arrow on it somewhere. I'd like to see a screencast, or even just a fuller written explanation, of the workflow you're using there. If you tell me what the goal is, what you're trying to accomplish, it would help me figure out better how to help you get this together. It's not readily obvious where you're trying to insert the extra destinations because ACADE just does the 'highlight-with-red' thing. (Those custom symbols down there don't start with the letters HA or VA, do they? If so, ACADE could be confusing them with the source/destination arrows, whose blocks are named like that. Such a thing would also give you that dialog, I think.)
Here's some other source/destination info that you may find useful:
My syntax for signal codes goes like this:
*for the 'code' field, I use 'wire number@line reference number'. For instance, Let's say I have a circuit breaker on line 1005. This makes the circuit breaker CB1005. The wire coming from the circuit breaker will be numbered 1005. Let's say that the wire jogs downward for a little ways and then turns to the right, and this is where I place my source code. At this location, the wire is no longer lined up with line 1005, let's say it's at line 2008. So, my source code for this wire would be wire number@line reference number, or 1005@1008.
*For the 'description' field, it could be anything...STO Channel 1; MCP Input Power; Light Curtain Power; etc. The description can be whatever - it all depends on what your needs are. But the code needs to be unique, and all destinations tied to it must match that code exactly.
My normal workflow for source/destinations:
*keep real-time cross referencing turned on (found in project properties).
*always place sources first.
*never manually enter destination info - pick from project list.
*don't assign wire numbers on the destination side - use the Insert Wire Number Copy command instead. Remember, the source knows the number of its wire and passes it on to the destination. This happens whether or not you include the wire number as part of your source code.
*avoid fixed wire numbers on the destination side.
*you can have all the destinations you need for any one given source code, but there can only be one source for any destination.
*a wire can only have one source, and one destination. For instance, at the beginning of the page would be a destination arrow, and at the end of the page would be a source arrow. So you can't have two sources on the same wire, or two destinations. But, you can have one of each.
There's more to know. If you have more questions, throw another post on this thread, or even PM me. We're super busy right now but I can find the time to get you together. Source/Destination isn't that hard once you know what all the pitfalls are. We'll get it!
Jim Seefeldt
Electrical Engineering Technician
Jim Seefeldt
Electrical Engineering Technician
Jim Seefeldt
Electrical Engineering Technician