About Wire Numbers

Wire numbers are blocks with attributes inserted on a line wire entity. AutoCAD Electrical toolset assigns each wire number type to its own layer. You can assign a different color to each of these layers so you can easily tell them apart. There are four types of wire numbers:

Normal	Wire numbers that are free to update when you rerun the Insert Wire Numbers command.
Fixed	Wire numbers that are fixed to their current value. They do not update with subsequent runs of the Insert Wire Numbers command.
Extra	Extra copies of the Normal or Fixed wire number that is assigned to a given wire network. A single wire network has one Normal or one Fixed wire number (but not both). It can have many extra copies of the wire number inserted at various locations on the network.
Terminal/Signal	Wire numbers for terminals and signal arrows.

Wire tag formats

AutoCAD Electrical toolset uses the concept of a wire tag format string with replaceable parameters. One replaceable parameter, %N, must always be part of the wire format string. A typical format string might be just this %N parameter.

Replaceable parameters for defining a default wire number tag format are:

%S	Sheet number of the drawing
%D	Drawing number
%G	Wire layer name
%N	Sequential or reference-based number applied to the component
%X	Suffix character position for reference-based tagging (not present = end of tag)
%P	IEC-style project code (default for drawing)
%I	IEC-style "installation" code (default for drawing)
%L	IEC-style "location" code (default for drawing)
%A	Project drawing list's SEC value for active drawing
%B	Project drawing list's SUB-SEC value for active drawing

Examples: Wire beginning on line reference "100" of sheet "02" yields these wire number tags for the following formats:

%N	wire number = 100
W%N	wire number = W100
%S-%N	wire number = 02-100
%S%N	wire number = 02100
%S : %N	wire number = 02:100

Wire Number Blocks

Wire numbers are a block insert and can be modified at the library level. The origin of a wire number block must lie on the wire segment, though the text attribute can move away from the wire. You must change several block inserts in each of the symbol libraries you use. The wire number block drawings to adjust are:

• wd_wnh.dwg - horizontal wire number
• wd_wnv.dwg - vertical wire number
• wd_wch.dwg - horizontal extra wire number copy
• wd_wcv.dwg - vertical extra wire number copy

You can find them in your AutoCAD Electrical toolset symbol library, C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Acade {version}\Libs\{library}\.

The horizontal and vertical wire number blocks must have a WIRENO attribute. The blocks can also have W01USER-W10USER attributes which can be used to assign various properties to the wire. If you define prompt values for any of the W01USER-W10USER attributes on the wire number block, the prompts are included in the label when you edit the wire number to assign values.

The W01USER-W10USER attribute values are available as fields in the following reports:

• Wire From\To
• Component Wire List
• Connector Plug
• Terminal Plan
• Cable From\To

The wire number copy blocks must have a WIRECOPY attribute. The W01USER-W10USER attributes are not used on the wire number copy blocks.