Does the new AutoCad , come with AutoCad Electrical ?

Join Date
Aug 2016
Location
Virginia
Posts
343
Good Afternoon ,

I need to make some electrical drawings for some projects I just finished .
I was looking around the AutoCad website , and I think I seen that it comes with AutoCad Electrical now . Is that true ? Is AutoCad Electrical fairly easy to use ? Does it come with any preloaded Rockwell Automation components ? I guess you can create your own images , right ?

Thanks so much in advance ,
 
Nope, Autocad Electrical is a different, enhanced product. Electrica does include all the functionality of regular Autocad.

I had training on it and it's a very good product for electrical design. It "knows" how a typical electrical diagram works and it has many time saving features like BOM generation. However, unless you invest some time to learn it it probably won't be worth the effort.

Even with the training I just don't do enough of it to be proficient so I just went back to scratching things out for our drafters to handle.
 
"Autocad" is now subscription only.

When you buy a subscription to the "full" version of autocad, you also have access to many of it's variants - such as Autocad Electrical.

Autocad Electrical has a fairly large install size, and yes, it does come with rockwell components "pre-installed" if you select them during the install process of Autocad Electrical (along with many other brands such as Siemens).

You can also buy Autocad LT for a much cheaper license fee, but it doesn't come with any symbols or parts database. (Although personally, an autocad clone such as Bricscad that does 2D has a perpetual license for close to the same cost- so you can actually open and edit your drawings years down the line as opposed to losing access if/when your subscription to Autocad expires)

If you have used generic Autocad before, Autocad Electrical will come fairly natural and be a quick learning process (although IMO it provides many pitfalls if you don't learn how to use it properly). If you have not used autocad before, it may seem cumbersome and difficult to use.

If you plan to do many projects in the future, Autocad Electrical might be a solid investment. If you are just looking to jot down some basic ladder diagrams or some simple 3-4 page projects of things you have already done, then using Autocad LT with an online symbol library might be a better choice.

Better yet, If you have a copy of Microsoft Visio as part of your office installation, I would just use that (there are many symbol libraries available for it) and save the money. It is capable of making decent schematics.
 
because Draftsight [Free version] was going away at the end of the year.

Yeah that's a pity. I worked with AutoCAD for years, even on DOS and am very accustumed to typing the (shortcut) commands with the left hand and then drawing (mousing) with the right. So I was very happy with Draftsight.
And it runs on Linux :)
 
From experience: if you have been using regular AutoCAD to make electrical drawings and then switch to ACAD Electrical you might have developed habits that will be hard to break.
 
Yeah that's a pity. I worked with AutoCAD for years, even on DOS and am very accustumed to typing the (shortcut) commands with the left hand and then drawing (mousing) with the right. So I was very happy with Draftsight.
And it runs on Linux :)


Draftsight Beta is staying free on Linux AFAIK, I think it's only Windows that they are charging for.
 

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