Coils & Contacts

January 2021

When we place a main element in our circuit design, for example a relay or contactor, it's good to know where all of their Normally Open and/or Normally Closed contacts might be placed through-out the schematic.

Circuit includes a feature to assign any symbol to be a Main element, and to assign any symbol to be a child element, and in this context we'll be using relays and their contacts for an example.

In the above example, we have the main element of a relay (R1), a Normally Open contact of R1, and a Table that lists the NO location of that contact below the relay.

Setting Up Coils & Contacts

The steps to using Coils & Contacts are as follows:-

• • assign a gene of $device, element of main, a Group reference and Text attributes to the primary element (a relay in this case)

  • assign a gene of $device, element of NO or NC and Group attributes to the child element (a Normally Open contact in this case)

  • assign a gene of $table and Group attributes of a Text object for the Contact Table

  • run the Update Cross References feature to complete

Relay Setup

Prepare a symbol as shown, and ensure it has a Text element with the following attributes...

NO Contact Setup

Prepare a symbol as shown, and ensure it has a Text element with the following attributes...

You may set the text to R1, though there is no real need, as this symbol is part of the group - lampControl - so the text will be automatically updated when Update Cross References function is run later.

Add the info text of *3/4 - this will be the text shown in the subsequent table. Always adjust this text to suit the actual contacts, for example *13/14 or *23/24 for a Normally Open.

Note: Any Info texts will not display any text after an asterisk!

The table will derive the NO from the element value of "no".

Table Setup

Prepare a Text object as shown, and ensure it has the following attributes...

For a table we only need a gene of $table, and a reference to the Group, again setting the R1 text is optional at this point.

Update Cross References

Now SAVE the Sheet before the last step!

To run the cross reference update function, choose Circuit > Update Cross References...

The result should reflect the screenshot at the top of this page.

Main & Aux. Cross References

You may have noticed the attribute of "aux" in the element options...

This value can be selected to create a cross reference between a Main element and any number of child elements that are neither NO or NC.

For example, suppose the push-button is actually a combined push-button and lamp unit...

The push-button is actually the Main element in this case...

And the lamp aspect is the child or "auxiliary" element...

Again, be sure to correctly specify the attributes as shown, plus create a suitable Group - in this case pbLamp.

Now SAVE the Sheet before the last step!

To run the cross reference update function, choose Circuit > Update Cross References...

That's all for Coil & Contact (plus Main & Aux.) cross referencing for now.