Sch_Cmd-PlaceWirePlaceWire_AD

Applied Parameters: None

Summary

This command is used to place a Wire object onto the active document. A wire is a polyline electrical design primitive that is used to form electrical connections between points on a schematic. It is analogous to a physical wire.

Access

Wires are available for placement in the Schematic Editor only, by:

• Choosing Place » Wire from the Schematic Editor main menus.
• Clicking the  button on the Wiring toolbar.
• Right-clicking and choosing Place » Wire from the context menu.

Use

After launching the command, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and you will enter wire placement mode. Placement is made by performing the following sequence of actions:

1. Click or press Enter to anchor the starting point for the wire.
2. Position the cursor and click or press Enter to anchor a series of vertex points that define the shape of the wire.
3. After placing the final vertex point, right-click or press Esc to complete placement of the wire.
4. Continue placing further wire objects, or right-click or press Esc to exit placement mode.
5. Use the Backspace or Delete keys to remove the last wire segment placed.

Placement Modes

When placing a wire there are 3 'manual' placement modes, 2 of which have Start and End sub-modes. The mode specifies how corners are created when placing wires and the angles at which wires can be placed. During placement:

• Press Shift+Spacebar to cycle through the 90 Degree, 45 Degree and Any Angle modes.
• While in the 90 Degree or 45 Degree mode (known as true orthogonal modes), press Spacebar to cycle between the Start and End sub-modes.
• During placement, the current placement mode is displayed in the Status bar. You can change modes at any time during wire placement.
• In modes other than Any Angle, the line segment attached to the cursor is a look ahead segment. The segment you are actually placing precedes this look ahead segment.

 45 degree mode

 90 degree mode

 Any angle mode

Press Shift+Spacebar to cycle through the different placement modes.

Guided Wiring

Schematics have a definable electrical grid that makes it easy to define electrical connections between objects. As you are placing a wire, when the wire falls within the electrical grid range of another electrical object, the cursor will snap to the fixed object and a Hot Spot (red cross) will appear.

Hot Spot (red cross).

The Hot Spot guides you to where a valid connection can be made and automatically snaps the cursor to electrical connection points.

The electrical grid can be defined on the Sheet Options tab of the Document Options dialog (Design » Document Options). It is recommended that you set the electrical grid to be slightly smaller than the current snap grid, or it becomes difficult to position electrical objects one snap grid apart.

Tips

1. For information on how a placed wire object can be modified graphically, directly in the workspace, see Graphical Editing.
2. A T-junction in a wire is automatically connected by a junction (Compiler-Generated Juntion). If the Break Wires At Autojunctions option is enabled, on the Schematic - General page of the Preferences dialog, an existing wire segment will be broken into two at the point where an autojunction is inserted. For example, when making a T-Junction, the perpendicular wire segment will be broken into two segments, one each side of the junction. With this option disabled, the wire segment will remain unbroken at the junction.
3. While attributes can be modified during placement (Tab to bring up the associated properties dialog), bear in mind that these will become the default settings for further placement unless the Permanent option on the Schematic – Default Primitives page of the Preferences dialog is enabled. When this option is enabled, changes made will affect only the object being placed and subsequent objects placed during the same placement session.