Overview of wire numbers

This tool quickly processes and tags wires on the current drawing, wires in the project, or individually picked wires.

1. Click Schematic tabInsert Wires/Wire Numbers panelInsert Wire Numbers drop-downWire Numbers.
2. Select to tag all wires or only new wires.
3. Select to process and tag wires with sequential wire numbers or with wire numbers based on the line reference location of the wire network.
4. (Optional) Set other tagging options such as:
   • specify the wire tag format to use
   • specify the wire layer format
   • force all wire numbers to be fixed
   • update cross-reference text on wire signal source and destination symbols
   • update the database for wire signal source and destination symbols
5. Select to tag the selected wires, wires on a drawing, or wires in a project.

This tool speeds up the process of inserting special wire numbering associated with 3-phase bus and motor circuits. It can also be used in a continuous mode. You can insert a long series of incrementing wire numbers and assign each, in turn, to the wires you pick.

1. Click Schematic tabInsert Wires/Wire Numbers panelInsert Wire Numbers drop-down3 Phase.
2. Enter a base starting number in the edit box or click Pick to select an existing attribute value on the active drawing.

   If the picked text carries a numeric substring, it is extracted and inserted into the Base edit box.

3. Enter an optional Prefix and/or Suffix value or choose from a default pick list by clicking List.

   The prefix or suffix value can be a comma-delimited string with each entry applied in sequence to the Wire Numbers section. The section is at the right-hand side of the dialog box.

4. Set the hold and increment options for each of the edit box values as required. Pay attention to the proposed generated wire numbers in the right-hand side of the dialog box.
5. Set the number of wire numbers needed in the bottom right-hand side of the dialog box.
   Tip

   Select None to generate a continuous list of incrementing wire numbers.

6. Select OK.
7. Select the wires for the wire numbers, either single picks or using the Fence selection.

   Fence selection inserts the wire numbers at the crossing points while single selections use the default wire number placement of the drawing. (For example, centered on the wire segment.)

Tips and Hints

Some problems with wire numbering (or lack thereof) can be traced to line wires not being on a valid wire layer. The solution is to move the line entities to a valid AutoCAD Electrical wire layer using the Change/Convert Wire Type tool.

Make a quick check of what is a wire and what is not. It highlights in bright red every line entity that is on a valid AutoCAD Electrical wire layer.

Select the AutoCAD Redraw command to remove the highlights.

1. Click Schematic tabEdit Wires/Wire Numbers panelModify Wires drop-downShow Wires.
2. Select whether to show the wires. All lines (wires) on wire layers are highlighted in:
   • Bright red - regular wires.
   • Magenta - wires on layers defined as No Wire Numbering.
3. Select whether to show the origin point for each wire number attribute text entity. The origin of a wire number block must lie on the wire segment, though the text attribute may be moved away from the wire.
   Note

   Do not use the AutoCAD Move command to move the attribute.

4. Select whether to highlight the wire number attribute text pointed to by each Xdata pointer. Xdata pointers identify which wire number insert goes with which wire segment.