From Newsgroup: comp.text.tex

I'm trying to draw some one-line diagrams of various substation
topologies, but can't figure out how to draw a circuit breaker.
I'm seeking something like: <https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Breaker-and-a-half-substation-arrangement_fig7_273350176>
or the ring bus and breaker-and-a-half diagrams shown at: <https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/switchgear-control-circuits-ac-dc-circuit-breaker-closing-circuit>

I've tried to RTFM:
<https://texdoc.org/serve/circuitikzmanual.pdf/0>
but, breakers don't show up in the components list, and a search for
the string "breaker" on that document reveals nothing.

Duck-Duck-Go's hallucination generator suggests "to[breaker]", but I get
the following messsage in my *.log file:
! Package pgfkeys Error: I do not know the key '/tikz/breaker' and I am going t o ignore it. Perhaps you misspelled it.

A MWE follows, although, by rights, it should be called a "Minimum
Non-working Example":

=======================================================
\batchmode
\documentclass[letterpaper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage[american]{circuitikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{circuitikz}
\draw(0,0) to[breaker] (0,1);
\end{circuitikz}

\end{document}
=======================================================

Any pointers on how to do something a simple as this?
--
Michael F. Stemper
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
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From Newsgroup: comp.text.tex

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote or quoted:

but, breakers don't show up in the components list, and a search for
the string "breaker" on that document reveals nothing.

From what I dug up, to[breaker] only turns up in unofficial texts;
strictly off the books, and my TeXlive 2024 setup does not recognize
it. It seems the options are either swapping in a substitute, like a
switch, or cobbling together the symbol yourself.

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From Newsgroup: comp.text.tex

On 19/03/2026 17.12, Stefan Ram wrote:

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote or quoted:

but, breakers don't show up in the components list, and a search for
the string "breaker" on that document reveals nothing.

From what I dug up, to[breaker] only turns up in unofficial texts;
strictly off the books, and my TeXlive 2024 setup does not recognize
it. It seems the options are either swapping in a substitute, like a
switch, or cobbling together the symbol yourself.

Thanks for the reply.

With that hint, I found a document titled "An easy way to creat your
own circuitikz symbols"[1], which sounded just like what I needed.

It took a while, but I managed to reverse-engineer it[2]. The
procedure appear to be:
1. Define something that attaches to a generic (or other) component.
2. Every time you want your custom thingy, \draw the base domponent.
3. Apply white-out to it.
3. Invoke your custom thingy on top of it.

Looks kind of like this:

====================================================== \documentclass[letterpaper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage[american]{circuitikz}

\begin{document}

\newcommand{\breaker}[2]
{\draw[thick] (#1)
+(-0.4,-0.4) -- +(-0.4,0.4) -- +(0.4,0.4) -- +(0.4,-0.4) -- cycle;
}

\begin{circuitikz}
\draw (0,0) to[generic,color=white,n=B1] (0,2);
\breaker{B1}{0}
\end{circuitikz}

\end{document}
======================================================

However, it's a bit sloppy. The breaker that I've drawn is really
larger than I'd like -- 0.8x0.8, when 0.6x0.6 would be better. But,
even at this too-large size, the leads from the original "generic"
element don't reach the breaker.

Now, linemen like an air-gap when they work on a breaker, but on a
diagram it's less than desirable. Three possible fixes come to mind:
1. Make the breaker even bigger, which offends me aesthetically.
2. Make the hidden generic shorter, hoping that the leads will
come along.
3. Make the generic short enough that it's square (still with the
leads coming along) and forget about drawing a box on top of it.

Well, I guess that 2 and 3 are the same thing.

Any ideas?

[1] <https://www.elfsoft2000.com/projects/speaker.pdf>
[2] Probably more accurate to say "cargo cult".
--
Michael F. Stemper
Galatians 3:28

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From Newsgroup: comp.text.tex

On 21/03/2026 13.41, Michael F. Stemper wrote:

On 19/03/2026 17.12, Stefan Ram wrote:

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote or quoted:

However, it's a bit sloppy. The breaker that I've drawn is really
larger than I'd like -- 0.8x0.8, when 0.6x0.6 would be better. But,
even at this too-large size, the leads from the original "generic"
element don't reach the breaker.

Now, linemen like an air-gap when they work on a breaker, but on a
diagram it's less than desirable. Three possible fixes come to mind:
1. Make the breaker even bigger, which offends me aesthetically.
2. Make the hidden generic shorter, hoping that the leads will
-a-a come along.
3. Make the generic short enough that it's square (still with the
-a-a leads coming along) and forget about drawing a box on top of it.

Well, I guess that 2 and 3 are the same thing.

I posted too soon. I just found \ctikzset, which does close to what
I'd like:

\ctikzset{bipoles/length=0.8cm}

However, I'd like it even better if I could make this change apply
only to "generic"; make the breakers smaller while leaving the caps
and inductors unchanged.

Base on <https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/698705/command-to-put-circuitikz-specification-in-preamble-to-use-it-globally>,
I tried:
\ctikzset{bipoles/generic/length=0.8cm}
but that is not the magic incantation. I bet that there is one.
Any pointers?
--
Michael F. Stemper
Galatians 3:28

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From Newsgroup: comp.text.tex

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote or quoted: >\ctikzset{bipoles/generic/length=0.8cm}

I also find code starting with

|\documentclass[border=10pt]{standalone}
|\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
|\usepackage[siunitx, RPvoltages]{circuitikz}
|\makeatletter
|%% Copied from Generic bipole - used as resistor by some |\ctikzset{bipoles/nlgeneric/height/.initial=.20} |\ctikzset{bipoles/nlgeneric/width/.initial=.60}

on the TeX stackexchange page titled

|Adding a custom component in circuitikz and using it within different files

.


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From Newsgroup: comp.text.tex

On 21/03/2026 17.34, Stefan Ram wrote:

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote or quoted:

\ctikzset{bipoles/generic/length=0.8cm}
but that is not the magic incantation. I bet that there is one.
Any pointers?

I find these examples in the web:

[snip candidates]

, so there might be no key starting with "bipoles/generic".

OTOH, "bipoles/empty" and "bipoles/circle" from the examples are
not in that index. So, the index might not be complete . . .

An empty bipole sounded like it might be what I wanted, but I couldn't make
it work. But, I had another idea, which does what I wanted (a smaller breaker, with the leads running all of the way to it. It involves:
1. Making the original bipole invisible.
2. Drawing my own leads.
3. Applying a filled breaker on top of it.

The result:

================================================
\batchmode
\documentclass[letterpaper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage[american]{circuitikz}

\begin{document}

\newcommand{\gcb}[2]
{
% \draw (0,0) to (0,2);
\filldraw[thick,fill=white,rotate=#2] (#1)
+(-0.3,-0.3) -- +(-0.3,0.3) -- +(0.3,0.3) -- +(0.3,-0.3) -- cycle;
}

\begin{circuitikz}
\draw (0,0) to[generic,color=white,n=B1] (0,2);
\draw (0,0) to (0,2);
\gcb{B1}{0}

\draw (0,0) to[generic,color=white,n=B2] (2,0);
\draw (0,0) to (2,0);
\gcb{B2}{0}
\end{circuitikz}

\end{document}
================================================

I tried to include drawing my own leads in the "newcommand", but
even though I put that before drawing the breaker, the filled breaker
didn't obscure the part that I would have expected to be behind it.

I guess that it's clean enough.

Thanks,
Mike
--
Michael F. Stemper
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From Newsgroup: comp.text.tex

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote or quoted: >\ctikzset{bipoles/generic/length=0.8cm}

but that is not the magic incantation. I bet that there is one.
Any pointers?

I find these examples in the web:

|\ctikzset{bipoles/cuteswitch/thickness=0.5}

|\ctikzset{bipoles/empty/height/.initial=.30} |\ctikzset{bipoles/empty/width/.initial=.80} |\ctikzset{bipoles/empty/voltage/distance from node/.initial=.4} |\ctikzset{bipoles/empty/voltage/bump b/.initial=2}

|\ctikzset{bipoles/circle/height/.initial=.60} |\ctikzset{bipoles/circle/width/.initial=.60}

|\ctikzset{bipoles/thickness=1}

. In the Web there is a special tutorial (PDF) named

|Creating bipole circuit components for circuitikz

by John Kormylo.

CircuiTikZ and its manual are an impressive work, but the
index does not have entries "ctikzset", "slash", nor "/",
so it's a bit difficult to learn from the ground up the
meaning of the syntax "\ctickzset{.../...=...}".

The idea seems to be

\ctikzset{key=value}

meaning "\tikzset{/tikz/circuitikz/key=value}".

The index gives use these entries starting with "bipoles":

|bipoles/border margin, 35
|bipoles/crossing/size, 100
|bipoles/currtap, 87
|bipoles/cutechoke/cthick, 159
|bipoles/cuteswitch/shape, 173
|bipoles/cuteswitch/thickness, 173
|bipoles/dcisource/angle, 81
|bipoles/fix tunable direction, 259
|bipoles/inductors/core distance, 65
|bipoles/inductors/dot x distance, 65
|bipoles/inductors/dot y distance, 65
|bipoles/is current, 224
|bipoles/jumpers/shape, 179
|bipoles/length, 36, 37
|bipoles/mic/bar thickness, 96
|bipoles/mstline/height, 154
|bipoles/mstline/width, 154
|bipoles/oosourcetrans/upper circle offset, 84
|bipoles/oosourcetrans/upper circle size default, 84
|bipoles/oscope/height, 90
|bipoles/oscope/waveform, 88
|bipoles/oscope/width, 90
|bipoles/qmeter/index position, 88
|bipoles/smeter/index position, 88
|bipoles/thickness, 38
|bipoles/tline/width, 155
|bipoles/vsourceam/inner plus, 82
|bipoles/vsourceam/margin, 82
|bipoles/vsourcesam/inner minus, 82
|bipoles/wfuse/dots, 97
|bipoles/wfuse/shape, 97

, so there might be no key starting with "bipoles/generic".

OTOH, "bipoles/empty" and "bipoles/circle" from the examples are
not in that index. So, the index might not be complete . . .


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