Beta Release Notes - July 28, 2026

This beta covers work completed since the July 2026 production release. It is available as both the FireCAD Add-in for AutoCAD (version 2.26.0728.1730) and FireCAD Standalone (version 2.26.0728.1739).

Important: This is a beta build. Back up your projects before installing, and report anything that looks wrong so it can be fixed before general release.

Most of this release addresses how FireCAD handles assemblies - cabinets with cards and modules configured inside them. If you work with multi-module cabinets, the first two items below change behavior you have almost certainly worked around by hand.

Choose Which Card or Input a Circuit Connects To

When you connect a circuit to an assembly that has more than one compatible input, FireCAD used to pick one for you. Which module inside the cabinet got the connection was effectively arbitrary, and there was no way to redirect it short of connecting, checking, disconnecting, and trying again.

Connecting now opens a picker listing every free input, so you choose the one you mean.

Each row names the card, its part number, its selection group, and its description. Opening the Input list shows every available input in the cabinet:

Details worth knowing:

• The picker only appears when there is a real choice. A device with a single free input still connects silently, exactly as before.
• Inputs already in use are listed but greyed out, labeled with the circuit occupying them, so you can see the whole cabinet's wiring at a glance.
• Selecting the same device several times fills up. Each row defaults to the next distinct free input rather than all landing on the same one.
• "Do Not Connect" is available on every row, so you can decline individual connections without cancelling the whole batch.
• Cross-exclusion is live. An input chosen on one row greys out on the others; freeing it re-enables it immediately.
• General-purpose inputs sort last. Junction-passthrough and surge-protection style inputs now sort below the circuit's specific types, so a junction input no longer wins over the module you actually meant.

The picker applies to Connect, Branch, Insert, and Relocate.

Modules Inside a Cabinet Now Keep Their Own Identity

Reported by a customer: a SIGA-MCT2 dual-address module configured inside a cabinet consumed only one SLC address instead of two.

The cause was that for a module inside an assembly, the connection belongs to the cabinet entity, and FireCAD read device properties from that entity - so the module's own catalog row was never consulted. Anything defined on the module rather than the cabinet was therefore wrong or missing.

That resolution is now correct everywhere it is used:

Below, a SIGA-MCT2 inside a cabinet correctly consumes two addresses - the Usage Summary reads Used: 2, the Connected Device List shows the module's part number, and the device label is the range L2-M376-M377:

Note: If a project already contains dual-address modules inside cabinets, their addresses will shift when you open it in this build, because they now consume their full address range. Re-check any address assignments you documented from a previous version.

Copy Devices With Their Circuit Connections

Copying devices previously carried over device settings but not circuit connections, leaving you to reconnect everything by hand.

When a Validate that you started detects copied devices, FireCAD now offers to copy their connections too:

• If you copied field devices but not their panel, the copies join the same circuits the originals were on.
• If you copied the panel as well, its circuits are recreated on the new panel with the copied devices attached.

Copying one selection to several locations is handled correctly - each placement is grouped by its offset, so every panel copy gets its own circuits with the right devices. Joined devices are appended in their original order, so each paste lands as a contiguous, correctly ordered block.

This is a prompt rather than a saved setting, and it appears only for a Validate you started. Automatic validations - on drawing open, or after drawing - never prompt and never copy connections. Copied wirepath entities refresh on the next Update Wire Labels.

Also fixed: copying an assembly could leave the copy with no components after validating. Copied assemblies now keep their full component configuration.

Exclude From Report Now Applies to Speaker Schedule and Point-to-Point

Reported by a customer: devices flagged Exclude From Report - junction boxes on speaker circuits, in their case - still appeared as rows in the Speaker Schedule report and its summary export. An audit found the modern Point-to-Point report had the same gap.

Both reports now honor the flag, and so do their summary exports.

Below, a Point-to-Point report for a NAC circuit carrying six horns and one outdoor strobe. Before the strobe's part is flagged, it is listed as N1-07:

With Exclude From Report set on that part, its row is gone:

Exclusion is display-only. The device is not listed, but circuit length and the electrical math are unchanged: an excluded device's length, resistance, and voltage drop from the previous device fold into the next device that is shown. In the report above, every total is identical with and without the excluded row - total circuit length 107 ft, total circuit resistance 0.657 ohms, end of line voltage 20.25 V, voltage drop 0.73 percent. Reports that work in lump sums, such as Decibel Loss and Battery Calculation, have no from-previous columns and were already correct.

Missing and erased devices drop out of these reports the same way.

Note: Reports already placed in a drawing that contain excluded devices will flag as OUT OF DATE until you regenerate them. That is expected.

Your Wirepath Label Style Edits Now Stick

A regression introduced alongside the new Format Wirepath Labels options meant that every label refresh discarded your edits to the AMTS MLeader styles - leader line type, arrowhead, and text attachment were reset and pushed back onto every leader in the drawing. Customers who had set their own leader style found it reverting to a framed label with a filled arrow on every update.

The MLeader styles (AMTSMLeaderStyle and AMTSMLeaderStyle2) are now the source of truth. Edit them and your changes persist across label refreshes.

Only two properties remain app-controlled, and both are the dialog's own checkboxes:

• Frame Wirepath Label Text
• Mask Wirepath Label Text - now correctly applied on every refresh, where previously it only took effect when a style was first created

Text size, arrow size, landing gap, and dogleg continue to track the wire label height project setting.

Clearer Failure When a Project Name Is Too Long

Creating a project whose name exceeded 100 characters failed with a database error and rolled the whole thing back, with nothing to indicate that the name was the problem. Long names also risked hitting the Windows maximum path length, since the project name becomes the .atpx filename.

The Project Creation Wizard now validates name length as you type and blocks Create with a message that says what is wrong:

All Project Properties fields are capped to their database column widths, so the same class of failure cannot occur elsewhere.

Reporting Beta Issues

Include your FireCAD version (About on the FireCAD Tools ribbon), what you were doing, and the project if you can share it. Email support or open a ticket through the Help Center.

Related Articles

• FireCAD Update - What's New
• Previous Releases
• Connecting Devices
• Updating a Project