What's new

Fixed

• Overload current reading. An overload was also counting the current of anything fed through its 95-96 trip contact — in the DOL preset it read 4.7A instead of the motor’s 4A. It now only counts current through its three power poles, as a real thermal overload does.
• An unpowered timer no longer drives anything. A timer’s NC output was live even when the timer itself had no supply, so a relay, lamp or second timer wired to it came on (and showed current flowing) before anything had operated. NC is now only live while the timer is powered and timing, and NO only once it has operated — and an on-delay timer’s output drops the instant its supply is switched off.
• Shorts on device outputs are now detected: a timer, PLC or custom-block output wired straight to N, 0V or earth, or a transformer’s X1 wired to its X2, now raises a short-circuit alarm like any other short.
• Parts can be moved anywhere. There was an invisible wall at the top-left of the work area, so parts in a new circuit or preset couldn’t be moved further up or left.
• Each preset’s instructions now show in the side panel when you load it — they were being replaced by the general Edit-mode tips.
• Parts can’t be added while simulating — the parts panel greys out until you switch back to Edit.
• Timer and PLC outputs can now drive relay coils. A relay (or contactor) wired to a timer’s NO/NC output or a PLC output never pulled in, although a lamp in the same place lit. Device outputs are now live before the relays are worked out, so relays, contactors and even a second timer (for a cascade) can all be driven from them.
• Relays and lamps no longer switch on with no voltage across them. In circuits where several lamps share a return wired to N, the simulator could find a false “supply” by tracing backwards through another lamp and the neutral bus, pulling in relays that should have stayed off. A point wired to N (or any rail) is now always held at that rail’s voltage. Thanks to the electrician who sent us their circuit.
• A circuit with only a power side — for example a supply, a breaker and a motor — now exports as a power circuit drawing, instead of saying there’s nothing to export.
• PDF export works with interlocked relay circuits. In circuits where several relays share a feed and their lamps share a return, the drawing tried to include every possible route — including ones back along the neutral — and ended up too big to draw. It now draws just the real paths: each relay’s button, and its seal-in through the interlocks. The voltage on the drawing now defaults to your control rail (e.g. 24V).
• The VFD now trips on output faults, like a real drive: an output connected to earth, PE or 0V trips it with an earth fault (GF); two outputs connected together, or an output connected to a supply, trips it with an output short (SC). Reset on DI3 once it’s fixed. Help lists all the drive fault codes.
• Alarms stay on screen until you acknowledge them. A short that only lasts an instant — like both contactors of a reversing starter pulling in together — used to flash up and vanish. It now stays, marked as cleared, and several alarms are listed together.
• A motor that goes straight from one direction to the other without stopping (plugging) now raises a Motor reversed at speed alarm.
• Fuses on a transformer’s secondary now blow. Loads fed from a control transformer weren’t being counted, so a 1A fuse feeding a 3A lamp off a 12V secondary never blew. They are now, and the primary side carries its share too (scaled by the transformer’s ratio), so a primary fuse sees it as well.
• The current path through a transformer is now shown properly: in through H1 and back out through H2 to N on the primary, and out of X1, through the load and back into X2 on the secondary.
• Current flow now goes the right way everywhere. Where two loads share wiring — like the RUN lamp across CR1 in the Start/Stop preset — the return side flowed backwards. Current now always runs from the supply, through the load and back to the return.
• A wire that has voltage on it but carries no current — such as the one up to a released START button once the seal-in is holding — now shows still dashes instead of flowing.
• A motor that loses one of its three phases (an open contactor pole, a broken cable) now single-phases: it hums, stalls and draws heavy current until the overload trips, instead of simply switching off.
• PDF drawings now number every wire, including a lamp wired across a coil, and all wire numbers are the same dark blue. Line numbers sit in small boxes in the margin so they can’t be mistaken for wire numbers.
• Drive and custom-block terminal names now sit inside the box, and motor U-V-W labels sit inside the motor, so incoming wires no longer run through them.