Electrical Symbols — Switches and Relays

In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can break an electrical circuit, interrupting the current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The mechanism of a switch may be operated directly by a human operator to control a circuit (for example, a light switch or a keyboard button), may be operated by a moving object such as a door-operated switch, or may be operated by some sensing element for pressure, temperature or flow. A relay is a switch that is operated by electricity. Switches are made to handle a wide range of voltages and currents; very large switches may be used to isolate high-voltage circuits in electrical substations. 26 libraries of the Electrical Engineering Solution of ConceptDraw DIAGRAM make your electrical diagramming simple, efficient, and effective. You can simply and quickly drop the ready-to-use objects from libraries into your document to create the electrical diagram.

Design elements - Switches and relays

The vector stencils library "Switches and relays" contains 58 symbols of electrical contacts, switches, relays, circuit breakers, selectors, connectors, disconnect devices, switching circuits, current regulators, and thermostats for electrical devices.
"In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can break an electrical circuit, interrupting the current or diverting it from one conductor to another.
The most familiar form of switch is a manually operated electromechanical device with one or more sets of electrical contacts, which are connected to external circuits. Each set of contacts can be in one of two states: either "closed" meaning the contacts are touching and electricity can flow between them, or "open", meaning the contacts are separated and the switch is nonconducting. The mechanism actuating the transition between these two states (open or closed) can be either a "toggle" (flip switch for continuous "on" or "off") or "momentary" (push-for "on" or push-for "off") type.
A switch may be directly manipulated by a human as a control signal to a system, such as a computer keyboard button, or to control power flow in a circuit, such as a light switch. Automatically operated switches can be used to control the motions of machines, for example, to indicate that a garage door has reached its full open position or that a machine tool is in a position to accept another workpiece. Switches may be operated by process variables such as pressure, temperature, flow, current, voltage, and force, acting as sensors in a process and used to automatically control a system. ... A switch that is operated by another electrical circuit is called a relay. Large switches may be remotely operated by a motor drive mechanism. Some switches are used to isolate electric power from a system, providing a visible point of isolation that can be padlocked if necessary to prevent accidental operation of a machine during maintenance, or to prevent electric shock." [Switch. Wikipedia]
"A relay is an electrically operated switch. Many relays use an electromagnet to mechanically operate a switch, but other operating principles are also used, such as solid-state relays. Relays are used where it is necessary to control a circuit by a low-power signal (with complete electrical isolation between control and controlled circuits), or where several circuits must be controlled by one signal. The first relays were used in long distance telegraph circuits as amplifiers: they repeated the signal coming in from one circuit and re-transmitted it on another circuit. Relays were used extensively in telephone exchanges and early computers to perform logical operations.
A type of relay that can handle the high power required to directly control an electric motor or other loads is called a contactor. Solid-state relays control power circuits with no moving parts, instead using a semiconductor device to perform switching. Relays with calibrated operating characteristics and sometimes multiple operating coils are used to protect electrical circuits from overload or faults; in modern electric power systems these functions are performed by digital instruments still called "protective relays"." [Relay. Wikipedia]
The shapes example "Design elements - Switches and relays" was drawn using the ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Electrical Engineering solution from the Engineering area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

Switch and relay symbols

Used Solutions

Engineering >

Electrical Engineering

Electrical Symbols, Electrical Diagram Symbols

When drawing Electrical Schematics, Electrical Circuit Diagrams, Power Systems Diagrams, Circuit and Wiring Diagrams, Digital and Analog Logic Schemes, you will obligatory need the electrical symbols and pictograms to represent various electrical and electronic devices, such as resistors, wires, transistors, inductors, batteries, switches, lamps, readouts, amplifiers, repeaters, relays, transmission paths, semiconductors, generators, and many more. Today these symbols are internationally standardized, so the diagrams designed using them are recognizable and comprehensible by specialists from different countries. Electrical Engineering Solution included to ConceptDraw Solution Park provides 26 libraries with 926 commonly used electrical schematic and electrical engineering symbols making the reality the easy drawing of Electrical diagrams, schematics and blueprints. Now you need only a few minutes to create great-looking Electrical diagram, simply choose required electrical design elements from the libraries, drag them on the needed places at the document and connect in a suitable way.

Cisco Network Design. Cisco icons, shapes, stencils, symbols and design elements

Cisco is the largest company, which specializes in the field of high technologies, develops and sells network equipment mainly for the large organizations and telecommunication companies. Cisco produces wide variety of devices and equipment, such as routers, switches, gateways, servers, network security devices (firewalls, VPN, IDs, etc.), ATM switches, cable modems and DSL equipment, access points Wi-Fi, products for IP telephony, etc. The first commercially successful multi-protocol router, which enabled for previously incompatible computers to communicate between themselves, is also developed by Cisco company. Cisco is a generally accepted standard, which uses globally recognized Cisco icons for all produced Cisco equipment. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM software extended with Cisco Network Diagrams solution from Computer and Network area contains a lot of predesigned Cisco network design elements for professional drawing Cisco network diagrams, visualization computer network topologies, equipment connections and arrangement.

Switches and relays - Vector stencils library

SPST

SPDT

DPST

DPDT

Make contact

Break contact

Two way contact

Passing make-contact

Spring return

Stay put

Limit switch

Circuit breaker

Spring return 2

Spring return 3

Limit switch n/o

Limit switch n/c

2 position switch

3 position switch

4 position switch

Manual switch

Pushbutton make

Pushbutton break

Pushbutton 2-circuit

Selector switch

Shorting selector

Proximity limit switch

Time delay make

Time delay break

Time delay make 2

Time delay break 2

Safety interlock

Flow actuated

Liquid level actuated

Liquid level actuated 2

Gas flow actuated

Pressure actuated

Temperature actuated

Thermostat

Temperature switch

Inertia switch

Mercury switch

Mercury switch 2

Fuse

Switch disconnector

Isolator

Change-over contact

Relay contacts

Relay coil

Pilot light

Pilot light, push-to-test

Relay, alternating-current

Relay, magnetically polarized

Relay, slow-operate

Relay, slow-release

Relay

Relay, high speed

Relay, mechanically latched

Relay, permanent

Used Solutions

Engineering >

Electrical Engineering

Electrical Symbols — VHF UHF SHF

Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 MHz and 3 GHz, also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one decimetre. Radio waves with frequencies above the UHF band fall into the SHF (super-high frequency) or microwave frequency range. Lower frequency signals fall into the VHF (very high frequency) or lower bands. UHF radio waves propagate mainly by line of sight; they are blocked by hills and large buildings although the transmission through building walls is strong enough for indoor reception. They are used for television broadcasting, cell phones, satellite communication including GPS, personal radio services including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, walkie-talkies, cordless phones, and numerous other applications. 26 libraries of the Electrical Engineering Solution of ConceptDraw DIAGRAM make your electrical diagramming simple, efficient, and effective. You can simply and quickly drop the ready-to-use objects from libraries into your document to create the electrical diagram.

Cloud Computing Architecture Diagrams

For documenting the Cloud Computing Architecture with a goal to facilitate the communication between stakeholders are successfully used the Cloud Computing Architecture diagrams. It is convenient and easy to draw various Cloud Computing Architecture diagrams in ConceptDraw DIAGRAM software with help of tools of the Cloud Computing Diagrams Solution from the Computer and Networks Area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

Network Diagram Software ISG Network Diagram

Drawing ISG Network Diagram using ConceptDraw DIAGRAM stencils

Diagramming tool - Amazon Web Services and Cloud Computing Diagrams

The AWS Architecture Diagrams solution includes icons, sample and templates for several Amazon Web Services products and resources, to be used when creating architecture diagrams. The icons are designed to be simple so that you can easily incorporate them in your diagrams and put them in your whitepapers, presentations, datasheets, posters or any technical material you like.

Specification and Description Language (SDL)

For people in the field of systems engineering or system design, working with specification and description language (sdl) and finite state machines (fsm).

Valves - Vector stencils library

The vector stencils library "Valves" contains 91 symbols of valves. Use it for drawing plumbing and piping plans, schematic diagrams and blueprints of industrial piping systems; process, vacuum, and fluids piping; hydraulics piping; air and gas piping; materials distribution; and liquid transfer systems in the ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software extended with the Plumbing and Piping Plans solution from the Building Plans area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

In-line valve