SkyCAD Electrical

[besc]

Anyone use Skycad Electrical. Looks like a pretty good electrical cad program.

 

[Bobobodopalus]

i have had a good experience using it, loads of tutorials available.


but i dont have any reference as its the only Ecad i have used

 

[bob1371]

I'm bouncing back and forth between Skycad and Design Spark Electrical to see which one I like the best. Both are good programs and both are free.

 

[cardosocea]

Have it installed but haven't done much with it so far.

 

[kalabdel]

Every year or more I install it do something quick then forget all about it. Last install was over a month ago and it looks pretty good that I spent a couple of hours watching tutorials. Next project I will try it out for the whole thing.

 

[mylespetro]

Every year or more I install it do something quick then forget all about it. Last install was over a month ago and it looks pretty good that I spent a couple of hours watching tutorials. Next project I will try it out for the whole thing.

I've done this as well. Seems really powerful but also requires a bit of time upfront to set up your libraries etc.

 

[cardosocea]

I've done this as well. Seems really powerful but also requires a bit of time upfront to set up your libraries etc.

I think this is the kicker with any software really... if there are libraries for it where one can just start designing stuff it's fairly simple. The issue is always drawing the libraries and getting the aspect ratio correct as well which takes a lot of time.

 

[Elcan]

I strongly recommend SkyCAD Electrical.
They really created a nice piece of software, that was designed different from its roots up.
Very sophisticated, but yet user friendly, features. Since the one that lets you add a device (a contact, for example) to a line without you having to cut the line, making room to the device, and redrawing the line around the device; all the way up to the catalog, the panel design, the terminal blocks, etc., etc.
Their tech support is fantastic, and they are open to your ideas for new features and things to fix/improve.
Their standard version is free, and their paid versions are more affordable than others with less features.

Definitely worth a try!

 

[SparkieJ]

I’ve been using it for almost everything the last year or so. It has it’s quirks like every software program, but it’s really starting to work well for me. Now that I have most of my common parts built up, I can generate drawings and BOM’s in short order

 

[mylespetro]

Another reason I stopped using Skycad is that I was getting random crashes out of nowhere. It seems to have been isolated to me, as Skycad support was kind of at a loss. That's definitely one positive I've encountered is that their support is very quick to reply and don't seem to just give you the generic steps to try.