Power patching
A cabinet needs more than data — it has to be plugged in. Power is a second layout over the same project: the same cabinets, grouped into power lines instead of port chains.
The mode lives inside Patching and is turned on by the Power button on the right-hand side of the toolbar. Pressing it again returns you to data patching.
Data and power are two independent layouts of one project. A cabinet assigned to a card port has nothing to do with the line it is plugged into: signal and electricity run different routes, and the configurator never mixes them.
Assigning cabinets
The gestures are exactly those of data patching — there is nothing new to learn:
- Pick a line in the list on the left — it plays the same role as a card's active port.
- Click the cabinets in the order the cable will run.
- Switch to the next line and carry on.
Dragging works too: after the first click move the cursor without holding a button — a cabinet is appended when the cursor enters the circle at its center. Arrow keys ← ↑ → ↓ append the nearest cabinet in that direction.
The route is drawn the same way: a triangle at the start, circles in the middle, a square at the end, numbers in order and a line with arrows. What differs is what the marker prints: in data patching it is the port number, here it is the line number.
Automatic layout
The six traversal patterns in the toolbar work here too — the same ones covered in Automatic patching. Pick a line, click a pattern and drag a marquee over the cabinets: they fall into the line in that traversal order.
One thing differs, and it is the ceiling: the chain is trimmed by the cabinets-per-cable norm, not by port capacity. Anything beyond the norm is left out — only the selected line is filled, the layout never spills onto the next ones.
The list of lines
There is no "add line" button — the list grows by itself. Occupied lines are rounded up to a full group of four, and a spare group is always kept beyond it: there is always somewhere to assign a cabinet, and in a project with sixty lines adding each one by hand would be work for its own sake.
A line button shows its number and its load in watts. An overloaded one gets a red border and a blinking dot.
Calculation mode: what limits a line
The first field of the right-hand panel is Power standard. It sets the calculation mode as well, because there are exactly two options:
| Choice in the list | What limits the line | When it suits better |
|---|---|---|
| By cabinets | The cabinets-per-cable norm alone | The norm lives on the cabinet itself and works with no setup at all — this is the default. |
| A specific standard | Both the cabinet count and the current | When the line has to fit a breaker: a ceiling in watts is added. |
Watts are computed and shown either way — on the line button, in the total load and in the spec sheet. The only difference is whether they take part in the overload.
Two norms in "by standard" mode
Picking a standard gives you a second norm. A line counts as overloaded when either is broken — breaking either one is a real incident on site, not an exceeded nominal rating:
| Norm | Where it comes from | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| By current | The selected power standard | A ceiling in watts: voltage × amps × (1 − reserve). |
| By cabinet count | The "cabinets per power cable" field on the model card | A company's installation practice: 12 cabinets per cable for some, 9 for others. |
The load panel shows each line's leading percentage — whichever is closer to its limit — and for an overloaded line it says outright what it hit: the current or the cabinet count. Without that a red row would not tell you what to do about it.
A cabinet with no power filled in on its catalog card is not counted as zero — it goes into a separate "cabinets with no power" counter. A power calculation resting on an invented value lies quietly, and lying here is the most dangerous of all: check the model card in your catalog.
When one line holds cabinets of different types with different norms, the lowest norm present in that line applies. A norm of 6 on one of the types means the sixth cabinet is already at the limit, whatever a type rated 12 standing next to it says.
Power standards
A standard sets one line's ceiling by current. The list is combined: the server standards an administrator maintains, plus your own and your edits to the server rows. Setting them up for yourself is covered in the Standards section of your account.
Next to it a switch chooses which cabinet power the load is computed from — peak or average. Peak answers "will it hold at maximum", average answers "what will it draw in use". This field works in both modes: watts are always shown.
Three levels of settings
The same two fields appear in three places, and each one overrides the one before it:
| Where | What it affects |
|---|---|
| Account → Application → Display settings → Power | Defaults for every new project. |
| The top block of the mode's right-hand panel | Settings of this project; every new line takes them as it is created. |
| The selected line's block (below, with a colored chip) | Settings of one line. |
A line remembers its settings at the moment you start patching it. So changing the standard in the top block leaves already-routed lines alone — it prepares the next ones. To change a finished line, select it and edit its own block.
The line block shows the actual value in force rather than a reference to the common one: open a line and you see what it is calculated by, without looking back up.
Context menu
Right-clicking a cabinet in Power mode gives its own items — about lines, not card ports:
- Remove this connection — take one cabinet off the line;
- Reverse line — turn the line around;
- Clear line — drop the whole line;
- Clear Power — drop power patching across every line, with a confirmation.
Where this goes next
- Into the spec sheet. The "Power patching" toggle adds a section to the TXT listing the lines, cabinet counts, load, percentage and the reason for an overload.
- Into the patch image. The Patching format has a separate Power view that draws the power lines instead of the port routes.
- Into the view settings. Power has its own route styling — line, arrows, circle, markers, outline, number, marker shape. It is not tied to the data-patching settings: the two are often viewed in turn on one project, and telling them apart at a glance is only possible while the sets stay independent.