Connecting Wires

A wire junction is automatically established whenever the coordinates of a wire end are identical to the end coordinates of a wire previously specified. However, two wires will be also connected automatically when their ends are spaced one tenth of the wire radius. Wire junctions must be established to satisfy Kirchhoff’s current law at the connection point.

Figure 1 shows the correct and incorrect ways to connect two wires. To connect the end of wire 1 to a point on another wire 2 that is not another end, you must split wire 2 into two wires. So, three wires will be needed instead of two to make the connection.

Two wires can be connected by copying and pasting their ends. The following procedure will show how to connect the Start Point of a wire #1 to the Start Point of a wire #2.

Procedure for connecting two wires at their ends

1. Right clicking on wire #1 will display a pop-up menu.
2. Choose the Copy Start Point or Copy End Point command from the pop-up menu. This command is also available in the Wire Properties window of the selected wire, Fig. 1.
3. In this example, wire #2 will be a Line. Then, choose Draw/Line in the main menu to display the Draw dialog box for the Line.
4. Press the From Point button to paste the copied point, Fig. 2. Then, complete the definition of wire #2.

By means of this procedure, any number of wires can be connected at the same point.