Electrical Design Software | Elecdes Design Suite by Scada Systems Ltd

How to Report the Connection Side on a Terminal Strip

Polarised terminals

Elecdes will recognise a special family of terminal symbols as Polarised Terminals. These terminal symbols have file names beginning with either: "ht2" or "vt2", for example "ht2term.dwg", or standard terminals with their RSTATUS attribute containing either "FPOLAR" or "RPOLAR".

For reports of connections to polarised terminals, Ebase will report the side into which the line segment on the schematic is connected.

A good example of a terminal that should use a polarised terminal symbol is a diode terminal. For a diode terminal, it is important that the appropriate side of the terminal can be determined from the connection reports.

The RSTATUS = "FPOLAR" or "RPOLAR" method provides an easy way to convert an existing project that uses standard terminals to instead have polarised terminals without needing to replace the terminal symbols.

SIDE1 / SIDE2 reported in TERMSIDE column

The side is reported into the TERMSIDE, or TERMSIDE_A and TERMSIDE_B columns of the connection reports database. If the line segment on the schematic is joined to the top or left of a polarised terminal, then "SIDE1" will be placed in the TERMSIDE column. If the line segment on the schematic is joined to the bottom or right side of a polarised terminal, then "SIDE2" will be placed in the TERMSIDE column.

The TERMSIDE column will not be filled for non-polarised terminals.

See Connection Schedule Report Formats.

The value of "SIDE1" and "SIDE2" can be changed by editing the settings named "INT_TermSide1" and "INT_TermSide2" under the [REPORTS] section in the EL32.INI file.

Line segment orientation and connection side

The side at which a line segment is connected to a terminal is generally obvious. To account for the fact that terminals are fairly omni-directional symbols and that conductor lines can be joined to them in almost any location, the "side" is determined in this manner:

  • Elecdes examines the orientation of the line segment, as it heads away from the terminal, to determine from which side it exited the graphic of the terminal. i.e. If a line segment is drawn from a terminal to a device on the left of that terminal, then it will be considered as connected to the left side of the terminal.

  • The line orientation is then considered in comparison to the horizontal or vertical orientation of the terminal symbol itself to determine whether the conductor exited from side1 or side2 of the terminal.

Reversed polarised terminals

Polarised terminals can be shown reversed. A symbol using the polarised terminal file name starting "ht2" or "vt2" that represents a reversed polarised terminal has the letter 'R' in the BUSW attribute. For more information see Terminal Symbol: BUSW attribute (Elecdes).

Reversed polarised terminal symbols can be created by using the Reverse Symbol function. For more information see Reversed Symbol (Elecdes).


A terminal symbol using RSTATUS that represents a reversed polarised terminal should have the value "RPOLAR" in the RSTATUS attribute. The value "FPOLAR" represents the forward orientation.

Terminal Strip Diagrams

The Wiring Diagram module takes polarised terminals into consideration when drawing terminal strip diagrams. Connections to polarised terminals will be kept on the correct side, unless manually overridden.

Panel Wire Routing

Paneldes takes polarised terminals into consideration for panel wire routing. Polarised terminals will connect to ducts on the correct side of the terminal.