autocad electrical 2006 or ecti promise

hi everyone

i am about to have to make a decision on some cad software . autocad electrical or promise. i have tried demos of both and they both have features that i like the promise seems a littke easier to use but i have had no formal training on either package what are some thoughts ?

never used "Promise" so i cant comment on that..
Auto Cad i can comment on!!

Last version i used was a cad lite 2002..It was good..Not easy to learn..but once you got the hang of it, it was o.k.

I then tried a cad electrical 2006..love it..again..a learing curve if you never used a acad proggie but still lots of good features and you can fumble thru with the basic knolage if need be..I wish i had more time..if i had the time i would take the course acad offers..it would be a MAJOR help..

D

Check out these links. We have had this discussion many times before.
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=15935
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=18979
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=16994
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=1958

No PROMIS-E!!!

I have used Promis-E and AutoCAD Electrical both......STAY AWAY FROM PROMIS-E!!! I have talked about this before on here. I switched to ACADE after months of bugs, headaches, and poor tech support from Promis-E.


Greg

I second Greg.

ACADE is the way to go.

I'd have to agree with Greg Dake above. I used Promis-E for years, and while it was capable of doing most everything I needed, it was full of bugs, some of which were horrible...
Promis-E:
1) EXPENSIVE addon modules that are basically required.
2) EXPENSIVE yearly maintenance fees
3) Projects and their Datatbases would often get corruped on a version change
4) Annoying to try to zip up a drawing set and give to a customer
5) Often lost cross references, corrupting wire numbers, requiring a lot of manual editing
6) Limited number of connection points per symbol. It's a lot, but not enough sometimes
7) Defining symbols is a pain, and editing them is difficult
8) Adding symbols or modifying the symbol icon menus is a nightmare.
9) Upgrading an installation could very well wipe out all information if you use network directories (multi-seat installations)

ACAD-E doesn't seem to have any of the above problems. ACAD-E has about the same learning curve as Promis-e, but streamlines many of the things that were very quirky in Promis-e. Also, it works very well together with Autodesk's mechanical, pneumatic, and other packages for a truly integrated drawing set.

Does anyone have experience with the latest version of promis-e (5.06)? Just wondering if anything has improved recently, as I too need to decide which to get. Trouble is, buying AutoCAD Electrical ($US 4500) costs almost double what fresh licenses of AutoCAD LT ($US 850) plus promis-e ($US 1700) would cost.

Does the extra couple grand for AutoCAD Electrical really pay off? The demo videos for promis-e look soooooo slick...and their dialog boxes look better than AutoCAD's...

And does anyone have experience with the latest Electra 2005? Slick website, but is it worth the $800?

Please help steer me away from The Dark Side, whichever side that may be...

Thanks!

Fred

PS: To help start off my first post, I hereby pass on some Visio electrical stencils I got from George Steel, which he made back in 2000 (all credit to him!). Just in case these oldies aren't floating around the ether anymore.

Don't you get it?

I don't know how many ways I can say stay away from a product...

We too are leaning towards getting ACAD Electrical. I now use ACAD R13 for my electrical schematics (yuk).

I think it is a no brainer, but this forum helped me make
my decision. Thanks guys.

I would rather use a T-Square then Promise-E.

Promise me anything, but don't take away my AutoCad!

regards.....kc

The Demo Video's may look good, but hey, they are demo's, designed to showcase their product. They won't show you the annoying parts, the crashes, the broken cross-references, et al.

Also, unless they've changed drastically, the price for PromisE you have is much less than I remember paying. 1700 may be for the very base package, but that is without Database (parts access), Wire Run List, Terminal plan, Panel Layout, and any other features you might be interested in.

Another nice thing about ACADE is that the drawings are autocad drawings. You don't need the package to open them. I have an older version, and you can even edit without the electrical package, you just need to be good at acad.

My customers mostly demand their drawings in autocad.

An old sales quote was "No one ever got fired for buying IBM."
That probably applies here also.

Promis-e Stands way above ACAD-E

And I can prove it. I have both acad-e 2006 and Promis-e 5.06
I see alot of people putting promis-e down but I wonder there capabilities to use either one. Try one simple comand like copy a page Promis-e 1 command Acad-e 5 processing commands. Duplicate device ID all thru Acad-e. Promis-e will let you know when there is an error. If anyone wants to step up to the plate and go one on one feature to feature Promis-e will Stand above.

More wrong information from Rick

Promis-e is in a dwg format just like acad-e. With both packages you need to stay with there attributes and layer structure. You can update both software packages with plan Autocad

One last comment

Any one looking at the 2 and has not made a decision I worked for Siemens Power for 12 years using Promis-e. Our project where anywhere from 2000 to 4000 pages of schematics. We were able to incorporate P&I Diagrams, One Lines, Cabinet Layouts with never a problem. So if you haven't made your decision yet I would take a close look at Promise as a global solution. One more thing acad-e is programed in AUTOLISP and scratch database any time you need to run a process you have to open all pages to see if you have an error. With that Have a great day