I/O wire drawings.

[Dale87]

What's everyone use for I/O drawings on new installs. I am trying AutoCad Electrical, but can't download it due to a MS Office application running 32 bit that I have to find and uninstall. Does anyone have AutoCad Electric and have a dwg file from a AB Cplx project they would share and I could manually tweak it in AutoCad LT.
Rather than using the excel template and AutoCad Electrical.

 

[parky]

I used ACLT just created loads of templates for all manner of things like PLC's, I/O cards Motor starters etc. unfortunately a few years ago the company I worked for went into liquidation & I did not have time to copy all the templates so effectively lost them, I might have some on a USB stick somewhere I will post them if I find them but away from home for a month so will take some time.

 

[WhinnieThePooh]

This is a drawing from a project I am currently working on. We use AutoCAD with CADProfi electrical addon. The drawings aren't as pretty as I would like but it works well.

The terminals are aligned for a 3/8" grid.

 

[d x l]

If you've already paid for a license for AutoCAD Electrical, you'd better just figure out the software issue. ACADE is a full version of AutoCAD, and LT has some big limitations. When I worked at a place with limited ACADE seats, sometimes guys with LT sent me files so I could run a command missing from LT.

EPLAN is supposed to be a ton better than AutoCAD Electrical and I believe it. But the price of AutoCAD Electrical is often lower, and I have 11+ years of experience dealing with the awfulness. However, it is better than just plain 2D CAD so I'm glad to have it.

 

[Robb B]

I've been trying out SkyCAD, seems to be very easy to use so far. I'm only using it for basic wiring plans though, so I don't know if there's further use applications which it cannot do.

 

[I_Automation]

After Draftsight decided No More Free App - Pay Up I followed the majority here and started using NanoCAD and have used it for electrical and mechanical parts, machine layouts, process flows, etc.

 

[joseph_e2]

We used plain AutoCAD for years at my last place. They started pushing us into DraftSight but we had some issues with the block definitions and shapes files not working correctly so we got permission to keep using ACAD. Here, they switched us to BricsCAD, which has been similar enough to ACAD to not be annoying. I do my panel layouts primarily in Inventor, but create a quick 2D version in BricsCAD now for the guys to use when building the panels. I'll take a serious look at SkyCAD and see if IT balks when I install it. They've been getting more and more strict about that.

 

[creativepaper]

Couple things I like about ACAD Elect is the auto wire labelling and the terminal creation.
I also hate the terminal creation at the same time.

 

[WhinnieThePooh]

We used plain AutoCAD for years at my last place.

Same here. Just plain old AutoCAD works great, especially if you have a pile of pre-created templates and symbol blocks. We bought CAD Profi electrical about 6 months ago and I am really liking it so far. It has a fairly well rounded IEC & NFPA symbol library and adding your own symbols is quite easy. It has some automatic symbol numbering capability, and it manages layers automatically.

I do my panel layouts primarily in Inventor, but create a quick 2D version in BricsCAD

CAD Profi also supports BricsCAD as well as a host of others.

CAD Profi Electrical: https://www.cadprofi.com/main/en/products/cadprofi/cadprofi-electrical

Supported CAD software: https://www.cadprofi.com/main/en/support/support/requirements

 

[d x l]

Seconded on the terminals. It actually took years for me to get control over accurate terminal strips in AutoCAD Electrical (working through issues in spare time).

Once set up, AutoCAD Electrical automates a lot of tasks well, but it is so clumsy to set up and learn. I think making any terminal strips in plain CAD would be horrific (that's why I put up with ACADE), but it also shouldn't have taken years to figure out how to make them accurately on ACADE.

If your designs are small and infrequent, and you don't need BOM reports, don't bother with AutoCAD Electrical.

 

[Puddle]

I bought a licence for SEE Electrical last year. Does the job, wasn't expensive and has a feature for plotting panel layouts.

What I didn't know at the time though was that there's an additional fee to pay for access to their parts library so you can use the manufacturer specified terminal layouts and dimensions. I'd have to jump through so many hoops to get that paid for that I'm just managing without it for now.

 

[Rsflipflop256]

Autocad LT beats autocad electrical unless your company already has standards in place specifically for autocad Electrical.

Also at an even lower pricepoint and the same functionality as Autocad LT, check out Draftsight. The liscence is about one third the price per year and it does everything LT does.