Wire Dot Not Showing

[Anonymous]

I'm not able to get AEDOTTEE to show up when I click on my wires. It doesn't tell me anything's wrong so I don't know why it's not showing up. It worked fine in 2008 but I haven't been able to get it to work in 2010.

Thank you for your help.

Dawn

[tominman]

If you are working on an IEC drawing, you will have to use an Angled Tee.  There doesn't seem to be scaling for the Dotted Tee and it shows up very small in my drawings.

I would think there would be a scale factor for this, but I haven't found it and chalked it up to working in IEC .

Tom Inman

[dougmcalexander · Accepted solution]

Dawn have you changed the Feature Scale Multiplier?  The size of the node dots, angled wire offsets, trap distance, and the like are affected by the Feature Scale Multiplier.  Don't use the FSM to scale components.  It is intended to be used for gently nudging the size of the symbols up or down (i.e. 1.2, 1.2, 0.9, etc.), not for metric to inches conversion or vice versa.  To scale an entire library, such as scaling the IEC2 symbols to fit an ANSI D-sheet I recommend using the Modify Symbol Library tool and set a new scale.  I have a library folder of symbols named IEC2_03937 which contains all of the IEC symbols with 2mm text scaled to their inches equivalent for use on ANSI size paper.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Doug. 

Could you tell me where to find the Feature Scale Multiplier?  I've never heard of it before.

Thanks.

Dawn

[Anonymous]

Never mind...I found it in the drawing properties under the drawing format tab.  Thanks again.

[dougmcalexander]

Dawn if you didn't know where the Feature Scale Multiplier is, I doubt you would have made a mistake there.  The default setting is 1.0, meaning no change to scale, either up or down.  So if the setting is 1.0 that is not the cause of your missing dots.  The symbol file is named wddot.dwg.  Be sure it hasn't been accidentally deleted from the symbol folder you are using.

[Anonymous]

It was set to 1.0 when I looked but the wire dots are very small so I bumped it up.  I have to make sure the symbols are being inserted at the 1.0 so they are the correct size.  I must be doing something wrong here then if the wire dot is so small it's barely visible.

[dougmcalexander]

If you change the FSM it will affect all symbols.  What symbol folder is your project pointing to?  What size drawing environment are you working with (i.e. ANSI B, C, D, etc.)?

[Anonymous]

I'm plotting to Ansi B  11 x 17 paper.

[dougmcalexander]

Is your drawing area 11x17 as well? You can draw on a 34x22 and plot to fit 11x17 but I am interested in your drawing environment. Also what symbol folder is your project set for? The JIC1 and JIC125 library folders are ideal for 34x22.

[Anonymous]

I draw in model space at 1:1 and my paperspace is set up for Ansi B.  My library is custom made symbols but I started with the IEC menu.  We don't use any of those symbols but everything is drawn in metric.  It's confusing...I know.

[dougmcalexander]

That's what I suspected.  What library folders are in your project path?  If you are going to draw in metric it is best to use a metric library of symbols, if inches, then use the JIC.  If you must use JIC symbols in a metric drawing, then scale the entire library up by 25.4.  If using metric symbols in an inches environment scale the metric folder by 0.03937.  If you created your own symbols, then you should create a wddot.dwg symbol that fits the size of your drawings.

[Anonymous]

My symbols are drawn in metric but I'm not sure about my wddot.dwg so I'll check that right now.

Thank you very much for your help.

[Anonymous]

I found a wddot.dwg in the IEC2 folder so I copied it and pasted it in my library.  Everything is sunny skies again.  Thanks again for your help.

[dougmcalexander]

That's why I asked which library folders are assigned to your project.  The software inserts symbols according to the hierarchy of the assigned symbol folders.  If wddot.dwg is not found in the first library folder listed it will look to the next folder in the list and so forth and so on.  If a JIC folder happened to be listed it would have pulled the wddot.dwg symbol from the JIC folder and it would be 25.4 times too small for a metric drawing.

[rcriceus]

I know this thread is an old one but I encountered a similar situation this morning.

In my case, I am using an existing drawing that I have added wires to plenty of times. The DOT isn't showing up in one drawing. I tried all the tricks shown in the previous threads but no luck. It just won't put a dot on a wire junction. All of the other drawings in my set put dots as expected.

I ended up copying another drawing from the set to overwrite the affected one and recreated the drawing.

Interested to know if there is some other feature in AutoCAD Electrical 2016 that would turn off the DOT function when inserting wires.

[Icemanau]

Apart from the FSM and Library, this is the only other setting that I'm aware of that affects the Wire Dot.

In Drawing Properties, go to the Styles tab.

Bottom left section shows the style for Wire Loops and Wire Tee's.

Make sure the Wire Tee is set to the Dot or Angle as appropriate.

Regards Brad

[rcriceus]

Turns out the path to my library was disconnected somehow. I used the Start Menu option to revert to AutoCAD defaults and the matter was corrected. Interesting that just my laptop version was out of touch as I didn't have the issue with the same drawing on my desktop install. I share my setting through AutoCAD 360.

Rick