Wire

A Wire represents an electrical connection between two components in the harness. Each wire can be assigned a wire part.

Adding a Wire

In the Schematic View, left-click-drag from the connection handle of one component to another to create a Wire.

Moving Connections

To move the connections on a cavity or terminal to a different one, hold ⌘ (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) and left-click-drag from its connection handle to the handle you want them on. There’s no need to delete the wires and draw them again.

While the key is held, the handle changes to a ring and every connection that will move is highlighted. The rest of the harness is dimmed. As you drag, the connection line is drawn as moving dots rather than a solid line. When you drop on another handle, the end of each highlighted connection moves there, just as if you had changed its destination. The other end of each connection stays where it is, and so does any custom path set with Layout Points.

Moving works from and to:

• connector cavities, including a connector’s shell
• terminals
• splices
• either side of a diode or resistor

Everything connected at the handle moves together: wires, cable cores and shields, and twisted wires. Mates are not moved.

Releasing the key before you drop creates a new wire instead, as a normal drag does. Use ⌘ + Z / Ctrl + Z to undo a move.

Assigning Color

If no part is assigned to a Wire, you can manually set its color. right-click the Wire in the Schematic, Layout, or Conection view and choose a Color from the Color menu. More colors can be selected by clicking More at the bottom of the color list. The Stripe color can be assigned in the same way.

Assigning Idents

To add a color Ident band to a Wire, right-click the wire and then click the button next to Ident. You can add multiple color Ident bands to a Wire and they will be displayed in the order they were added. To remove a color band, right-click on the wire and then click the color square for that Ident.

To add a label ident to a Wire, right-click the Wire and then click on the Ident placeholder text in the menu.

The label background color can be set by adding a color ident with the button. If the number of color idents matches the number of characters in the label, each character will be displayed with a background color corresponding to the color ident.

Idents are drawn along the wire itself, following it round any bends, on the canvas and in the PDF export. Colour bands are always drawn at full length; a label that doesn’t fit its half of the wire is cut short with an ellipsis.

Adjusting the Wire Path

You can set a custom path for a Wire using Layout Points.

Dashed Wires

Wires can appear as dashed lines in the Schematic view when they are not yet routed through a Bundle in the Layout view.

To hide dashed lines deselect Dash undefined routes in the View options menu in the bottom right corner of the Schematic view.

Jumper Wire

A Jumper Wire (loopback wire) can be created by left-click-drag from one cavity to another within the same connector in the Schematic View.