Eplan or AutoCad Electrical?

Any users of Eplan out there?
What do you think of it?
Is it more efficient than AutoCad Electrical?

Like with most things, you get what you pay for.

If you don't mind spending the money, get E-Plan. It's designed from the ground-up to be an electrical design suite. AutoCAD Electrical is regular AutoCAD with some extensions tacked on to the end of it. Plus, it uses Access for it's component database. Access has absolutely NO business in this level of software development. It's something an amateur freelance programmer would do for a little custom app, but the fact that an application suite that costs thousands uses it is a crime imo.

I've only used AutoCAD electrical. I was using ACADe 2013 but now I'm on AutoCAD 2004 and I actually like it better. I'm personally not a fan of "design" software like this. I honestly don't see the point. Nobody is out there doing every drawing set from scratch. Add the fact that by the time you've fought with the software, trying to figure out how to get it to do what you want it to do, it negates what little time you've saved worrying about cross referencing.

brstilson,

I disagree. we have a standard layout for our drawings.
the only thing that is common to our set of drawings is the power circuitry, e-stop, and fusing.

other than that, each job has its own set of specific needs and they are all different.

I have designed hundreds of electrical panels from the ground up and they are all different based on customer requirements.

I upgraded to autocad electrical upgrade from autocad 2012 and my custom library because everyone wanted autocad electrical experience. i'm installing it this week and hope to be doing the tutorials shortly.

regards,
james

NetNathan said:

Any users of Eplan out there?
What do you think of it?
Is it more efficient than AutoCad Electrical?

Click to expand...

That is how you start a holy war

NetNathan said:

Any users of Eplan out there?
What do you think of it?
Is it more efficient than AutoCad Electrical?

Click to expand...

Search the site, this has been discussed before.

Kind regards,

The following statements are that of my personal opinion and valued at the price you piad for them.

I have experience in all 3 methods. When I first came here it was all done in plain vanill autocad and there was a pretty decent library to work with. Later we upgraded to Autocad E as thats what some of our other sub and sister corporations were using and we had licenses at no additional cost.

Then I got turned on to EPlan and purchased it. From my opinion EPlan is the best hands down and beats AutoCad or Autocad Electrical by a mile but it depends on what your needs are.

I need and use all the functionality of EPlan but for small shops it may be overkill.

I have also used promise E both before and after it was purchased by bently and it's ok for small projects but using it on a large project is asking for trouble as the database leaves much to be desired.

Think of it like this Autocad is a CAD program that they added a database to to make Autocad Electrical and EPlan is a dtabase that they added CAD functions to.

Which to you think is the most challenging to code a proprietary database or CAD functions?

Proprietary database of that magnatude wins every time.

eplan is more database and for new installations where you have to put everything in the document.
autocad is better and faster in drawing, but the database has its flaws,
if you just want drawings choose autocad otherwise eplan or elwin(cheaper)

They say EPlan will actually build prints from AB logic.
Any one using this feature?

NetNathan said:

They say EPlan will actually build prints from AB logic.
Any one using this feature?

Click to expand...

I use it a great deal but it works with Logix 5000 platform pretty well and you can import from IAB and you can bi directional import / export with RS Logix Architect.

So logic can make drawings or drawings can make logic your pick.

I'm stuck (corporate wise) using AutoCad Electrical, but it is about total trash, and every new (yearly version) is annoying to incorporate to your old custom libraries.

E-Plan is far superior for electrical drawings, though costlier. I'd go with either straight AutoCad, and handle the electrical parts yourself, or better, go E-Plan.

I don't even use AutoCad Electrical anymore, I just fire up the base AutoCad, and deal with everything myself, much faster, much lest frustration.

Here is a link that I started about them.
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=79230

Autocad origins are in construction engineering while eplan is all about elecrical. It has terminal wiring diagrams, current schematics, bill of materials, large symbol database, cable connections, crossreferencing.... To compare them would be like compare Corel with autocad. More adequate comparision would be with Visio.
As a maintenance engineer I always request drawings in eplan format for my cabinets.
Of course, for household instalations it may be overkill but for any serious engineering it is way aheaf of autocad... From my point of view...