AC-impedance in circuitikz

Question

I am looking for the Symbol of a AC-impedance as it is used often in some fields of electrical engineering. It's the symbol of a European resistor with a sinusoidal wave in it as in the picture below. Can anyone help me with this?

Is this symbol really used? Where have you seen it? Is there a standard which defines it that way? // Never seen it during my last 50 years in electronics here in Germany or elsewhere. What I've seen over and over again, to indicate a complex impedance, is: an ordinary resistor symbol AND using letter Z instead of R ... so it's clear it's not-ohmic, but complex. In very old sources the interior of the resistor was filled with black ink to further emphasize "it's not-ohmic". — MS-SPO, Aug 06 '21 at 17:14
I made a little mistake. I know this sign as a AC-impedance, so I only know this from AC-circuits. I changed this now in the question. At my university this sign is used quite commonly. Normally in connection with power grids. — DraUX, Aug 06 '21 at 17:22
The symbols is not too difficult to add to circuitikz - but I also (like @MS-SPO) never saw it in my (too many) years in the field. If you can find some reference entry for it you can do a component request for it... — Rmano, Aug 06 '21 at 22:10
As an electrical engineer, I've never seen this symbol before, regardless of where the source material originates. It's possible I've just not seen anything from wherever you're located, but you may want to consider if you really want to use a symbol that at least seven people so far (myself, MS-SPO, and the five others who upvoted MS-SPO's comment) feel some level of unfamiliarity with. — Hearth, Aug 07 '21 at 16:38
Just for the sake of interest, I would like to see some reference, literature of whatever where this is used. Like other comments, for a complex linear impedance (that is consist of R, L and C) we used to use "Z". — Johannes Linkels, Aug 11 '21 at 23:38

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 06 '21 at 17:30

If you don't want to create a custom symbol from scratch, you could use the following code to overlay the last symbol with a small sine wave. Maybe it is sufficient for your needs:

\documentclass[border=2mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{circuitikz}
\newcommand{\sine}[1][]{%
 \draw[thick, #1] ++(.8,0) sin ++(.1,.1) cos ++(.1,-.1) sin ++(.1,-.1) cos ++(.1,.1);%
}
\begin{document}
\begin{circuitikz}
\draw (0,0) to[generic] (2,0);
\sine
\draw (2,0) to[generic] (4,0);
\draw (0,2) to[generic] (0,0);
\sine[rotate=90]
\draw (0,0) to[generic] (0,-2);
\end{circuitikz}
\end{document}

Black Mild · Answer 2 · 2021-08-12T06:36:48.097

As far as I know, there are 2 (not so compatible to each other) ways: 1. using TikZ's library circuits.ee.IEC; and 2. using circuitikz package. Searching the keyword impedance from the manuals does not give any result. Do you want to draw it "by hand" with pic of TikZ? Note the use of [sloped] when the path is not a horizontal line.

\documentclass[tikz,border=5mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}
% inductor 
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathmorphing}
\tikzset{inductor/.pic={
\draw[white,line width=1mm] (-.5,0)--(.5,0);
\draw[decorate,decoration={coil,aspect=0.4,segment length=1mm,amplitude=1.5mm}] (-.5,0)--(.5,0);
}}
% resistor
\tikzset{resistor/.pic={
\fill[white] (-.5,-.1) rectangle (.5,.1);

\draw[pic actions] (-.5,-.1) rectangle (.5,.1);
}}
% AC-impedance
\tikzset{AC-impedance/.pic={
\fill[white] (-.5,-.15) rectangle (.5,.15);

\draw[pic actions] (-.5,-.15) rectangle (.5,.15)
(-.25,0) sin (-.125,.075) cos (0,0) sin (.125,-.075) cos (.25,0); % sin path
}}
% capacitor
\tikzset{capacitor/.pic={
\fill[white] (-.5mm,-2mm) rectangle (.5mm,2mm);
\draw[pic actions] (-.5mm,2mm)--(-.5mm,-2mm) (.5mm,2mm)--(.5mm,-2mm);
}}
\begin{tikzpicture}[nodes={midway}]
\draw 
(0,2) to pic[sloped,blue]{AC-impedance}
         node[left=1mm]{$Z_1$}
(0,0) to pic{AC-impedance}
         node[above=1mm]{$Z$}
(2,0) to pic{resistor}
         node[above=1mm]{$R$}
(4,0) to pic{inductor} 
         node[above=1mm]{$L$}
(6,0) to pic{capacitor} 
         node[above=1mm]{$C$} (8,0);
\draw (-135:2) to 
pic[sloped,red]{AC-impedance}
node[above=1mm,sloped]{$Z_2$}
(0,0);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Sebastiano · Answer 3 · 2021-08-07T12:26:55.467

There is also another package, after circuitikz, for drawing the circuits: pst-circ. Here a small example:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{pst-circ}
\usepackage{amssymb,scalerel}
\newcommand{\sinus}{\hstretch{1.8}{$\boldsymbol\sim$}}
\begin{document}
\begin{pspicture}(5,5)
\pnode(0,0){A}\pnode(3,0){B}
\pnode(0,2){C}\pnode(3,2){D}
\resistorlabeloffset=0(D){$\sinus$}
\wire(A)(C)
\wire(A)(B)
\wire(B)(D)
\end{pspicture}
\end{document}

AC-impedance in circuitikz

3 Answers3