A Thought on Electrical Drawings

I've been gathering up contractor "As built" markups recently and running them through the new office printer/copier/scanner. It can do up to A3 size and scans up to 30 sheets at a time to PDF.
We also have a lot of old plant for which the original (hand drawn) schematics have been lost through various means, and the maintenance electricians are re-drawing the circuits on mostly A4 paper.

CAD packages have advantages of being easy to update if you have the software, easy to archive, and if you need a copy, it is always printable in completely legible format.
Hard copies are easier to use on the plant floor, can be marked up or drawn by anyone, but cannot easily be continuously copied or archived/emailed.

Using a PDF scanner, the drawings can now be easily archived. Software exists allowing PDF files to be split and joined, allowing individual old pages to be updated or more pages added.

Could we now be looking at hand drawings making a comeback?
Could they compete with CAD?

Hi Doug

I use Cadsmann CAD package (Aussie) and print to an A0 plotter or pdf file and then to a Xerox Docuprint 205. The printer prints A4 and A3 in black and white. The printer also has a double sided print unit to print both sides of the page. The printer also has Adobe hardware on board (no software emulation) and prints pdf files brilliantly.

I work for myself and struggled to purchase the A0 laser plotter and could not afford a scanner. I normally take any large format drawings to my plotter supplier and he scans them for me.

I will never go back to hand drawings that is for sure and will certainly continue using CAD. No, they cannot compete with CAD. By the way, my normal size for panels, circuit diagrams and PLC I/O diagrams is A1 landscape, a really good size.

Is this a bit tongfue in cheak or what?

Doug_Adam said:

Could we now be looking at hand drawings making a comeback?
Could they compete with CAD?

Click to expand...

Not a chance!

Hi Doug,

When building panels from scratch, I use a CAD package called Promis-e. It does things like automatic wire numbering, automatic terminal numbering, cross-referencing, BOM, etc.

From the drawings, we can export a *.csv file to another software package that drives a wire number plotter... Thus once a project is "finalised", the wire numbers and device labels etc can be plotted within a very short time period.

The drawing package is/was hard to learn, but once on top of it, the benefits outweigh the learning hassles..

Ian

I use and electrical CAD package and ditto to Ian.


I do envision LCD or similar technology drawing tables, the size of old drafting tables. Maybe.

I use ACADE and plot everything to a PDF document. Then I place the PDF documents in a network folder which is further divided by area folders and is available everyone in maintenance. Any markups are submitted through an Engineering Change Order) and if approved then the drawing is updated. This way an up to date authorized drawing is always available. If someone spills oil or tears a drawing or it can't be found its easy to just print another. Also where there is an HMI computer the drawings can usually be accessed right at the machine by launching a PDF viewer from an HMI maintenance screen.

Our drawings are all done with ACAD Electrical, and always will be unless a better software package comes out and blows the corporate people away. Our initial changes are pen marked on machine copies in red ink, removals are done in green ink. When machine copies start to get too many markups, or are in questionable shape, the electronic copy is updated with the penned markups and printed off as a new machine copy. It is then archived and the process starts again.

One area I don't think my method will compete is in new works, such as a new plant or a complete re-wire and refirbish of an old plant. Even a CAD system with only copy and paste would beat hand drawing. AutoCAD Electrical or Eplan type CAD systems are even further ahead.
On the other hand, re-drawing old plant drawings because the others are lost - why then spend the extra time transferring this to cad when it is not necessary?
Other situation, some people cannot use CAD system. Now ideally, training, purchase of software and/or PC hadware would be ideal but not always practical. So an alternative is required.

Sometimes you just have to ask the dumb questions

Doug,

With Autocad Electrical, you can install a .dwg viewer that anyone can use to view and print out drawings. It is very easy to use.

Bob

Autodesk discontinued Volo View Express, the free viewer,if that is what you mean Bob.

testsubject said:

With Autocad Electrical, you can install a .dwg viewer that anyone can use to view and print out drawings. It is very easy to use.

Click to expand...

Better than just a free viewer, for 2D applications there is a free editor. It uses *.dwg files, looks like AutoCAD, and works like AutoCAD LT.
www.progecad.com