About wires

Understand wires in AutoCAD Electrical toolset.

AutoCAD Electrical toolset treats AutoCAD® line entities as wires when the lines are placed on an AutoCAD Electrical toolset defined wire layer. The number of wire layers available in AutoCAD Electrical toolset is unlimited. These lines get tagged with wire numbers and show up in various wire connection reports.

Two wire segments connect if the end of one wire segment touches or falls within a small trap distance of any part of the other wire segment. This connection can be at the end of the other wire or anywhere along the length of the other wire.

If the wire end falls within a trap distance from the wire connection-point attribute of a component, AutoCAD Electrical toolset considers a wire connected to a component.

The following rules determine the wire layer for a new wire segment:

• Wires that do not connect to an existing wire at either end are put on the default wire layer defined in the Create/Edit Wire Type dialog box.
• Wires that begin at an existing wire take on the same layer as the beginning wire.
• Wires that begin in space or at a component and end at an existing wire take on the layer of the ending wire.