About Creating and Using Cables
A cable is a specific number of conductors that will be bound together for manufacture. The cable itself has certain parameters, and each conductor within the cable has its own parameters. For example, minimum bend radius is a property of the cable, but each conductor in the cable can have a color or thickness value.
You can add wires to the design and then assign them to a cable; or, you can create the cable and add the wires to it as you route them, on the fly.
The Cable Spool
In Diagram cable properties are set up and stored in spools similar to wire spools. Cable spools have an additional required parameter for the number of conductors the cable has. When you define a cable spool, you use the Electrical Parameters dialog box to define parameters describing the properties of each conductor.
Assigning Wires to Conductors
When you add a cable to the design, you first activate a parent spool based on the number of conductors you need in the cable.
To add a cable to the design:
1. Select wires to add to the cable, then,
2. Assign each wire you added to one of the predefined conductor numbers in the cable.
When the cable is complete, the wires reference their associated conductors in the cable spool for parameters and values, the wire spool properties no longer apply.