Cable Numbers

A cable number is the short label that names one cable on a schematic, such as A100. Your company decides once, on Global Config, how its cable numbers read.

What a cable number is

A wire is a line on the schematic that joins two device ports, and it stands for one real cable. A cable number is the label that names that cable. While the Cable# toggle on the schematic toolbar is on, the schematic prints it beside both ends of the wire. The same label goes on both ends of the real cable, so an installer can match a cable in the wall to its line on the drawing.

Every cable belongs to a cable category. A cable category is the kind of signal the cable carries. There are eleven categories, and each one has a fixed one-letter name, called its registry letter:

• A — Digital Audio
• M — Mic Level
• L — Line Level
• S — Speaker Level
• V — Baseband Video
• N — Network/Ethernet
• U — USB
• C — Control
• R — RF/Coax
• F — Fiber
• P — Power

A wire gets its cable number when you choose its category. Right-click the wire, choose Assign Cable Type, and pick a category by its letter. The Signal Flow Diagrams page walks through these steps.

Each category keeps its own count within a schematic. Out of the box, the first Digital Audio cable is A100, the next is A101, and the first Baseband Video cable is V100. These are the default labels, and the rest of this page explains how your company changes them.

The company pattern

The pattern is your company's rule for how a cable number is put together. It is a row of parts, read from left to right. A part is either a variable, which is filled in for each cable, or fixed text, which is the same on every cable.

The default pattern is the category's letter followed by a three-digit running number. It gives labels such as A100.

The pattern lives on the Global Config page. Open Global Config, under Admin in the navigation menu, and find the Cable numbers panel. The top row of the panel shows the pattern as a row of boxes, one box for each part.

One pattern covers every way a cable gets its number: the wire's right-click menu, the schematics copilot, Claude Desktop and the REST API. A schematic that is already open uses a new pattern for its next cable number, without being reopened. Read-only users see the panel but cannot change it.

Variables

A variable is a part of the pattern that is filled in for each cable. There are four variables, and a fifth kind of part holds fixed text:

• Type — the code of the cable's category. A code is short text that stands for a category. By default it is the registry letter, such as V for Baseband Video. The next section explains how to change it.
• Sequence — the cable's running number within its category, such as 100, 101 and 102. Sequence counts across the whole schematic and does not restart on each sheet. Every pattern holds exactly one Sequence.
• Sheet — the number of the sheet that the wire's source device sits on. A sheet is one page of the schematic, and the first page is sheet 1. The source device is the device the wire starts from.
• Room — the first three letters or digits of the source device's room name, in capitals. A device in Conference Room gives CON. A device with no room gives RM.
• Text — fixed text that you type, such as a building code. Text is limited to letters, digits and the characters . _ / -.

Sequence digits sets how many digits Sequence shows, from 1 to 6. The default is 3. A shorter number is padded with leading zeros, so with 4 digits the number 100 shows as 0100. A longer number is never cut short, so with 3 digits the number 1000 shows as 1000.

To change the pattern, work in the row of boxes:

1. Choose what a box holds from the menu in that box: Type, Sheet, Room or Text. A Text box also has a field for its text. The Sequence box has no menu and cannot be removed.
2. Click + at the end of the row to add a box at the end. Click the × in a box to remove it.
3. Click the left or right arrow in a box to move that part one place.
4. Pick the separator between two boxes from the small menu between them: -, ., _, / or none.
5. Set Sequence digits below the row.

The Preview below the row shows the first cable number of every category under the pattern. It uses sheet 1 and a room named Conference Room as samples. The pattern saves on its own a moment after each change, with the rest of the page.

Click Advanced to see the same pattern written out as text, such as {Type}{Seq}, and to type a pattern there. In that text the variables are written {Type}, {Seq} for Sequence, {Sheet} and {Room}. Everything else is fixed text, which is limited to letters, digits and the characters . _ / -. Any other name in braces, such as {Floor}, is refused.

A pattern starts with a variable, a letter or a digit. A pattern is refused if its labels could be longer than 40 characters, counting every variable at its longest. When a pattern is refused, a red message below the row says what is wrong, and the last valid pattern stays in use until you fix it.

For example, Sheet, then Type, then Sequence, with - between the parts, gives 2-V-104 for the fifth Baseband Video cable when its source device is on sheet 2.

Codes and start numbers

Below the pattern, the Categories table lists the eleven categories. Each row has three settings:

• Code is the text that Type shows for that category. It is at most 10 characters long, made of letters, digits and the characters . _ / -. A code can also be empty, and then Type shows nothing for that category.
• Start number is the first Sequence number the category uses in a schematic. It is a whole number of 1 or more, and the default is 100.
• Default product is a cable product from your catalog that the cable schedule uses for wires of that category. A cable run is a cable row in Project Details, on the equipment line of one of a wire's two devices, whose cable type is in the wire's category. When a wire has no cable run, the Part Number column of the Cable Schedule Excel Export shows its category's default product. It is also shown when the run's cable type has no product. To set it, type a make, model or part number in the box, press Enter or click the search button, and click a product in the list. It saves at once. To change a product that is set, click the search button next to it first. Click ✕ next to the product to clear it.

A code or start number saves when you leave the box you changed. The Preview above it updates to match. If a value is not allowed, a red message under the row says why, and nothing is saved. Click Reset on a row to return its code to the registry letter and its start number to 100; the row's default product stays as it is. The link shows only on a row whose code or start number differs from those defaults.

A new cable gets the next number in its category. That number is the larger of the category's start number and one more than the highest number the category already uses in the schematic. A new start number therefore takes effect when it is higher than every number its category already uses in the schematic; below that, numbering continues from the highest number in use. If the resulting label is already on another cable, the number moves up until the label is free.

If the pattern leaves out Type, the panel warns that categories are told apart only by their start numbers. In that case, give each category its own range of numbers, such as 100 for Digital Audio and 500 for Baseband Video.

The pattern, Sequence digits, and the codes and start numbers together make up your company's cable number scheme. Until someone changes them, they form the default scheme: the pattern {Type}{Seq}, 3 digits, each category's registry letter as its code, and 100 as every start number.

Changing the pattern later

A change to the pattern, to Sequence digits, to a code or to a start number applies to the cable numbers assigned after it.

Assigning a cable again to the category it already has keeps its number, and its label is redrawn in the current pattern. If the redrawn label is already on another cable, the number moves up until the label is free. Assigning a cable to a different category gives it the next number in the new category.

Renumbering existing cables

Renumber cables applies your company's current scheme to the cables already on a schematic. It rewrites the label of every numbered wire and every numbered flag. A flag pair is two flags that carry one cable from one sheet to another, so both flags show the same cable number, and Renumber gives both flags the same new label. A numbered flag without a partner is renumbered on its own.

1. Open the schematic and click Export on the schematic toolbar.
2. Find the Renumber cables card, below the Cable Schedule card, and click Renumber. Read-only users do not see this card.
3. The Renumber cables dialog says how many numbered wires and flag pairs the schematic has. A numbered flag without a partner counts as one flag pair. Keep each cable's sequence number (recommended) is selected when the dialog opens. Choose one of the two modes described below.
4. Click Renumber.

The two modes:

• Keep each cable's sequence number (recommended) — each cable keeps its Sequence number, and its label is written again in the current pattern, with the current codes and Sequence digits. If two cables would end up with the same label, one keeps it and the other's number moves up until its label is free. The dialog lists the labels that moved, so you can find those cables on the drawing.
• Restart each category from its start number, in page order — each category is numbered again, starting from its start number. Page order means sheet 1 first, then from top to bottom on each sheet, then from left to right, then by port. A wire takes its place from the device it starts from, and a flag pair from whichever of its two flags comes first. Within a category, wires are numbered first and flag pairs after them.

When Renumber finishes, the dialog reports how many labels were rewritten and how many were unchanged. A wire has one label and a flag pair has two, one on each flag, so a flag pair counts twice and a flag without a partner counts once.

On the schematic page, Renumber changes the labels on the drawing but does not save it. To keep the new labels, click Close in the dialog, click Back under the Summary card at the top of the Export step to return to the drawing, and click Save in the FILE group of the toolbar. The Back button at the top right of the page goes to the project instead, without saving. To discard the new labels, reload the page without saving. Anyone else who has the schematic open sees each relabelled wire and flag change as it happens, and if one of them saves, their save keeps the new labels for everyone, as with any other live edit.

Renumber leaves a label as it is in two cases. The first is when the device it belongs to is no longer on the schematic: for a wire, the device the wire starts from, and for a flag, the device the flag is on. The second is when the letter stored with the label is not a registry letter. A registry letter is the fixed one-letter name of a cable category, from the list of eleven at the top of this page. AVstackr stores a registry letter with every cable number it assigns, whatever code the label shows, so this case arises only on older labels. No other cable is given a label that Renumber leaves in place, and when one flag of a pair is left as it is, so is the other.

The schematics copilot, the assistant you chat with on the schematic page, and Claude Desktop renumber cables with the tool renumber_cables. Its mode is keep_sequences for the first mode or restart_from_series for the second. The dialog, the copilot and Claude Desktop plan the numbers by the same rules, so the same drawing gets the same labels from each. A renumber by the copilot changes the schematic you have open, and you click Save to keep it, as with the dialog. A renumber from Claude Desktop or the REST API is saved at once.

Where the number appears

• On the schematic, beside both ends of the wire, on screen and in the schematic's PDF export, while the Cable# toggle is on.
• On a flag or jump tag that carries a cable number.
• In the Cable Number column of the Cable Schedule Excel Export, described on the Signal Flow Diagrams page.
• In what the schematics copilot and Claude Desktop read back with read_cable_numbers. Each number comes with its registry letter, its category, its Sequence number and its full label.