Which Electrical CAD program do you use?

[jr9701]

autocad cant be beat in my opinion. The pricing is difficult to deal with, however if you look hard enough their is altenatives i.e. student editions etc.

 

[JesperMP]

In our department we use DPS PCSchematic which is a software package dedicated to electrical design. Easier to use than EPLAN.

In another department they are using EPLAN.
Questions to the EPLAN users:
Which version are you using ?
EPLAN 21 anyone ?
EPLAN P8 anyone ?

 

[nonuke]

We used Eplan 21 but now we are moving to the new Eplan P8

 

[nettogrisen]

Caddy/PCSchematic/Acad

 

[rowens]

elwin. what is the cost? it asks for credit card to register. i did not see what the price was. did I overlook it or just no go far enough?
it mentions some delays if not registered. what do they mean by delays?

 

[Doug_Adam]

Autocad 2005 - full version.

Don't ask why, My company pays for it, not me.

 

[rdrast]

Bah.. too tired, too much wine consumed... I voted 'Promis*e', when I meant to vote 'AutoCad Electrical'.

I've used both, and both have quirks and annoyances, but AutoCad Electrical is far superiour in my experience. If only they would freaking STOP CHANGING FILE FORMATS EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

 

[Rick Densing]

For those of you who use older versions of Autocad, Solidworks makes a product that lets you open newer file formats.

http://www.dwggateway.com/ It is very useful. Plus I find the fact that Solidworks made it amusing.

 

[allscott]

I use a full blown Acad Mechanical package. It's funny because the company I work for bought ACAD mechanical about 5 years ago because they wanted to be able to view vendors drawings. They have been paying for support and upgrades over the years and nobody here knew how to draw as much as a rectangle with it. I also haven't seen a 3-D vendor drawing since I got here, must have been a good software salesman.

I looked at cross grading to ACAD electrical but I'm not sure I use it enough to justify the cost (approx $1000.00 cdn). Now that there is someone here that knows how to use it somewhat I am making all kinds of mechanical drawings.

 

[gbradley]

...
http://www.dwggateway.com/ It is very useful. Plus I find the fact that Solidworks made it amusing.

They also make http://www.edrawingsviewer.com/
Nice stand alone program that lets you print files when someone sends you a newer version file than you have.

 

[ason]

elwin. what is the cost? it asks for credit card to register. i did not see what the price was. did I overlook it or just no go far enough?
it mentions some delays if not registered. what do they mean by delays?

I like Elwin, only diffrent between a register copy and that one u can download is that u have a delay when swaping around our pages,
so full version, and no time limit.. i have register my copy.

Price: 29.00 EURO

 

[Archie]

are there any free or shareware elec. cad prgs?

There was a very good free cad program, but they seemed to have stopped downloads until the next update. It works exactly like AutoCAD LT. Even to the point of reading and writing DWG files.

www.progecad.com

I use it interchangeably with AutoCAD.

 

[panic mode]

about free CAD version - try ProgeCAD Lt, it is free and it should be ACAD clone...
right now i'm using ACAD with some special little programs we made (generate BOM,
own printing etc.) and selected LISP scripts we found on the web (AutoNumb or DDNUMB is awesome).

so far we tried bunch of different 'special' packages starting with EZ Cad, Promise, VIA, See2000, See4000
and many more. they all have problems and promise way more than thye can deliver. my biggest complaints
are usually that:
- they are simply unstable or unreliable
- can generate relatively fast but can't efficiently edit - even their own creation
- no native DWG support (sorry but this is a must)
- language and support issues
- too much time and effort required to generate a new format template or component etc
- printing
- file exchange / import functions
- licencing annoyances (dongles, licence servers etc.).
and many more.

i haven't used EPlan, i've only seen demo. this seam to be the most powerful package so far
but then again they all look like that at first... i haven't seen Acad Electrical yet.
what does it do that regular ACAD doesn't?

 

[RayK]

Nobody mentions Turbocad?

Turbocad Pro ver 12 great program, I use it for wiring diagrams and 3d plant upgrades

 

[Steve Meisel]

Free 2D CAD Software:
Solid Edge: http://www.solid-edge.com/free2d/
I installed it on my laptop and at home. You must have XP.