Cables
A cable is drawn as a line across the wires it carries, with its tag at the end of the line and its type and cores under it, smaller: -W1, under it Motor cable 4G1,5. A long type goes on two lines. When a cable crosses wires on one page more than once, its top line shows type and cores and the others its tag alone. Where there is no room beyond the end of the line (at the edge of the sheet, before the next circuit), the label stands before its start.
Draw a cable
Insert → Cable (C): click where the line starts and where it ends, across the wires. Every wire it crosses becomes a core of the cable. The tool stays for the next cable until Esc.
A cable can be drawn several times, on one page or on others, with the same tag: e.g. to a level switch and back, or on the page of each sensor. It is one cable, and its cores are counted across all its lines.
Cable data
Select the cable line; the Properties panel shows:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Type | Motor cable, ÖLFLEX CLASSIC 110 |
| Cores | 4G1,5, 3x0,75, 2x2x0,5 |
| Cross-section | 1,5 mm² |
| Core names | BK BN GY GNYE, empty for the names made from Cores |
| Route outside, m | 25, 12,5: the length of its way outside the cabinet |
From Cores the program makes the core names: 4G1,5 gives 1 2 3 GNYE (G: with a green-yellow core), 3x0,75 gives 1 2 3.
Cores
The crossed wires get the cores in order, left to right (top to bottom). A wire of the PE potential gets the green-yellow core. To choose a core yourself, select the wire and pick Core in its properties; the others are given out around it.
The core is shown at each crossing. The check reports a cable with more crossed wires than cores, and a core used twice.
The Cable list report lists every cable with type, cores, cross-section, where it goes from (the devices in the cable's own location, e.g. the cabinet) and to (the others), and how many cores are used. The terminal diagram shows the cable and core at each terminal.
Length
Type the Route outside, m of a cable (to the motor, the sensor); the program adds the run inside the cabinet and a reserve:
- Inside: the cable comes in at the bottom of the mounting plate, under the end of its cores (or at the top), and goes along the cable ducts to the farthest terminal or device its cores go to, plus the reserve at a wire end. This needs the ends placed on a panel layout.
- Length = (route + inside) × (1 + cable reserve), rounded up to 0.1 m.
The properties of the cable line show the length and how it is made. The Cable list has the columns Route, m and Length, m and at the end the metres of each type of cable. In the Parts list a cable with a part and a length counts in metres (47 m, with each cable's metres), one without a length in pieces.
The cable reserve (10 %) and where cables come in (from below or above) are set in Project properties… → Wires and cables.