Bulk Wire setting is a feature used for products of category type Wire when the wire products come on a spool and are considered "bulk wire" vs. a pre-terminated wire of set length.
The Bulk Wire setting changes the behavior of wire products.
It will make the wire behave on a per-foot/meter basis. This is determined by your Regional settings in Windows (U.S. vs. Metric).
When adding a "Bulk Wire" to a project, you will be prompted to add the wire length, head end, start terminal, and end terminal for the wire. By adding "wire drops" vs. spools to projects, you can then use specific wires in our drawing interfaces.
Pricing
For wire products set to bulk wire, you will set the Unit Cost, Unit Price, and Labor Hours fields on a per-foot/meter basis.
In the following example, the labor hours are set to .008. That means that for a specific wire drop, say 100 feet, the labor hours charged would be .8 hours.
The unit cost and unit price will always be multiplied by the wire length, but you have an option of how to treat labor associated with the wire. If you do not want to set a labor hour value per foot/meter and want to add a value for labor hours regardless of the wire length, untick the Unit Labor Hours Per Foot option for the wire product.
Add to Project
When you add a bulk wire to a project, you will get the following prompt to assign the head end, length, start terminal, and end terminal.
This is optional. But it can be used to designate where a wire is coming from, e.g., from the "Audio" head end to the Conference Room.
The Start and End terminals are used on the Wire Terminal Count report. These fields can also be used to display specific images on the ends of Finish Wire shapes in Visio.
There is a Project setting relating to these fields. When set to "Yes," and you connect the wire to Schematic shapes or blocks, these fields will be overwritten with the terminal names set on the shapes or blocks.
Wire Length
This will determine the pricing and labor for the bulk wire.
There is a Project setting that determines whether or not you will be prompted by this form when adding either individual wires or wires in a package.