The best CAD for electrical drawings

visio electrical drawings

Which is the best CAD software for electrical drawings (automation, PLC) ?
Now I am considering EPLAN, AutoCAD Electrical 2006, RS Wire.
Can you advise me?
Thanks.

best electrical cad software

Hi,
you can use protel (www.protel.com) or Orcad software.
You can design schematic and PCB.
Best Regards

razavi visio

I prefer PCAD200X, it's easy to use, fast to drawing and has a big library. ORCAD is good for simulation, for PCB and schematic I don't like it. Protel is good, bu more difficult to use.

elcad tutorial

Hi

If I could do a wish in drawing tools for EE, I prefer the one that used in Behzard razavi's books and papers.


tnx

siemens cad drawings

Hi swilly !!

I use EPLAN RACER PRO 5.5.0.3.

It is a best CAD for electrical designer and automation (PLC).

AUTOCAD ELECTRICAL versions are good, RS WIRE too, but if you consider a serious work and capabilities, EPLAN is the ONE.

You can try ELCAD. It is very good too.

My choose: EPLAN RACER PRO 5.50

Best regards.

jackrs

eplan autocad

jimjim2k said:

Hi

If I could do a wish in drawing tools for EE, I prefer the one that used in Behzard razavi's books and papers.


tnx

Click to expand...

I have build some EE shapes in visio to imitate razavi's style. it looks great! I have tried many software and finally focus on visio. it can produce high quality graph and be easy to cooperate with other ms office tools, though it's not efficient to draw circuit. it's seems that no software can satisfy me suitable for schematic drawing for both eda netlist and document picture.

electrical drawings

Visio is great in drawing high quality electrical graphs. I have also create a stensil. One of benefits from visio is we can create configurable symbols. I have build some digital gates with configurable number of inputs.

eplan racer pro

It really depends on the time that you are willing to spend in learning and designing. If u want something simple and fast i advise u to use Visio. If you would like to spend more time i prefer Autocad though until u learn to use it you will spend a lot of time in each design!

electrical drawings tutorial

I think the best software is cadence + synopsis.

cad electrical drawings

Ok.
I am not interested in PCB drawings (Protel, Orcad, etc), just automation drawings (PLC, power circuits with contactors, guardamotors, relays, 4-20 mA curret loops, 24Vdc sensors, and so on).
I am not interested in low level solutions (like Visio), I am looking for a good electrical CAD, imagine more than 50 pages of a project, I want an automatic cross reference, automatic list of materials, copy and paste of objects, I mean high productivity software for electrical CAD drawings.
Until now, I think Eplan is the best choice.
I know it will take a long time to learn the software.

electrical drawing cad

vale said:

jimjim2k said:

Hi

If I could do a wish in drawing tools for EE, I prefer the one that used in Behzard razavi's books and papers.


tnx

Click to expand...

I have build some EE shapes in visio to imitate razavi's style. it looks great! I have tried many software and finally focus on visio. it can produce high quality graph and be easy to cooperate with other ms office tools, though it's not efficient to draw circuit. it's seems that no software can satisfy me suitable for schematic drawing for both eda netlist and document picture.

Click to expand...

Hi

Is it possible to share it with us?

tnx

visio razavi

here is my visio stencil. i use visio2003 and am not sure if it's ok for other versions.
when placing components (especially mosfets) you should change the view zoom to 200%, otherwise the pins may not snap to grids exactly in normal zoom.

elcad tutorial download

Hi
I am sure Protel is best one!
e1347

razavi like stencil visio

You can use the Proteus Professional, it offers a good thing where you can place and simulate programmable ICs (Atmel & PIC UCs for example) plus many other options

autocad electrical drawings

swilly said:

Ok.
I am not interested in PCB drawings (P*otel, Orcad, etc), just automation drawings (PLC, power circuits with contactors, guardamotors, relays, 4-20 mA curret loops, 24Vdc sensors, and so on).
I am not interested in low level solutions (like Visio), I am looking for a good electrical CAD, imagine more than 50 pages of a project, I want an automatic cross reference, automatic list of materials, copy and paste of objects, I mean high productivity software for electrical CAD drawings.
Until now, I think Eplan is the best choice.
I know it will take a long time to learn the software.

Click to expand...

hmm! With Autocad (even Autocad Electrical) I don't think that you can have the features that you mention. I believe e-plan is indeed the best choice.

autocad electrical drawings books

jackrs said:

Hi swilly !!

I use EPLAN RACER PRO 5.5.0.3.

It is a best CAD for electrical designer and automation (PLC).

AUTOCAD ELECTRICAL versions are good, RS WIRE too, but if you consider a serious work and capabilities, EPLAN is the ONE.

You can try ELCAD. It is very good too.

My choose: EPLAN RACER PRO 5.50

Best regards.

jackrs

Click to expand...

Hi jack,
I currently have EPLAN 5.40 SP1 of which i got no experience over. I'm in automation (SIEMENS S5 & S7) and need a tutorial please...

Regards,
Kgomotso Prince

e plan electrical drawing software

Hi!

kgomotso prince
PostPosted: 12 Sep 2008 14:22 Post subject: Re: The best CAD for electrical drawings
jackrs wrote:
Hi swilly !!

I use EPLAN RACER PRO 5.5.0.3.

It is a best CAD for electrical designer and automation (PLC).

AUTOCAD ELECTRICAL versions are good, RS WIRE too, but if you consider a serious work and capabilities, EPLAN is the ONE.

You can try ELCAD. It is very good too.

My choose: EPLAN RACER PRO 5.50

Best regards.

jackrsVery HappyVery Happy



Hi jack,
I currently have EPLAN 5.40 SP1 of which i got no experience over. I'm in automation (SIEMENS S5 & S7) and need a tutorial please...

Regards,
Kgomotso Prince

Click to expand...

You must try the new version of Eplan.This is Eplan Electric P8.
You can download from:
plc.net.ru
You will have for this tutorial,manual,macros.

Best regards!
Venix

elcad.it

Hi

I am new to this site and want a tutorial for EPLAN 5.40 SP1.
Please give me the details of this software

I will be highly obliged for that

Regards

Prashant

visio stencil simatic

hmmm wonder why EAGLE has not been mentioned

I'm using Windows, and am limited to free software (no AutoCAD, Orcad, Altium, Eagle, etc.) which I can share with fellow students. I've been using ExpressPCB and LTSpice. But neither one produces satisfactory looking schematics for use in a report.

The best free software I've found so far:

XCircuit
http://opencircuitdesign.com/xcircuit/

XCircuit saves files as postscript. Embed these in your LaTeX document.

For Windows users:

XCircuit is intended for Unix, so there's a lot of tools you need to get started, but once you're setup, it is a VERY powerful program, especially considering that it's free. The circuit diagrams look professional, they are hierarchical, there's a wealth of libraries of circuit elements, you can export netlists and SPICE files. There's even a library of professional-quality music notation symbols. The user interfaces in ExpressPCB, LTSpice, and KiCad are all good, but XCircuit offers the most freedom. The only downside is that the UNIX emulation environment is a little kludgey and takes some getting used to.

It will take at least a full day or two install everything and get comfortable with it, but the results are very professional. So please don't be daunted by the following long and frustrating set of downloads and installs. There are four steps.

1) Download LaTeX here -- it's the self-extracting zip file protext.exe
http://www.tug.org/protext/

Run Setup.exe -- this actually launches a pdf with links to install four programs: MikTeX, TeXnicCenter, Ghostscript, and GSview

2) XCircuit requires a UNIX emulator called Cygwin.
go to: http://www.cygwin.com/

click on the "Install Cygwin now" button. This will prompt you to save
"setup.exe".

(Remember where you save this file. Doing a full install of Cygwin takes forever, so the following steps explain how to install only the essentials. If you really get into Unix and want to install more packages in the future, simply run "setup.exe" again to add more packages to your install.)

Run setup.exe,
follow all the prompts.

When you get to the part where you select what to install, a core of
basic packages have already been selected. There's a few things you need to add.

To add a single file to the install, simply click on the word "Skip" so that the "Bin?" column is checked. You don't need to download the source files, so leave the "Src?" column unchecked.

To add an entire folder to the install, click on the word "Default" so that it changes to "Install").

Paste each of the following into the "Select Packages" search bar. Install all folders for all of the following, except where noted (of course you can install as much as you want, but in the interest of saving time...).

xorg
autoconf
libtool
make
automake
tcsh
vim
m4 (next to folder "Interpreters," click on the word "Default" so that it changes to "Install")
gcc (next to folder "Devel," click on the word "Default" so that it changes to "Install")
g++ (next to folder "Devel," click on the word "Default" so that it changes to "Install")
gdb (next to folder "Devel," click on the word "Default" so that it changes to "Install")
zip (next to folder "Archive," click on the word "Default" so that it changes to "Install")
unzip (next to folder "Archive," click on the word "Default" so that it changes to "Install")

Click "Next" and wait a long time while the files are downloaded and installed.

You may want to play with Cygwin a bit before proceeding. For first-time UNIX users:
**broken link removed**

3) Install Tcl and Tk:
Binaries are here: http://opencircuitdesign.com/cygwin/tcltk.html
("Binary" just means the software is already compiled for Windows, as opposed to "Source" files which you'd have to "build" yourself within the Cygwin environment -- I found building sources too difficult, so I just downloaded the latest binaries).

scroll down to
"Tcl-Cygwin binary distribution download and install:"

Download tcltk_x11_win.tgz. Save it in the folder where you installed Cygwin (probably C:\cygwin)

(Note: DO NOT USE THE VISTA VERSION -- there is a Tcl/Tk version
mismatch (8.4!=8.5) that causes endless frustration.)

From within Cygwin, navigate to the folder where you saved the download. Assuming you saved it in C:\cygwin, type the following:
$ cd /
(now you are in the correct folder)
$ ls tcl*
(you should see the file tcltk_x11_win.tgz)
$ tar xfz tcltk_x11_win.tgz
(this unzips and installs tcltk)

4) Install XCircuit:

Binaries are here: http://opencircuitdesign.com/cygwin/xcircuit.html

download xcircuit-3.6.129v.tgz (or whatever the latest binary is)

Follow the exact same steps from step 3 above:
--Save in C:\cygwin
--open a Cygwin bash shell and type:
$ cd /
$ tar xfz xcircuit-3.6.129v.tgz

That's it!

To run XCircuit, simply open a Cygwin bash shell and type:
$ xcircuit

To get started, the three tutorials on the XCircuit site are very good.

go to http://opencircuitdesign.com/xcircuit/

and click on:
Tutorials

Since XCircuit saves files in postscript format, embedding the circuit in your LaTeX document is very simple. Open your LaTeX project in TeXnicCenter and select Insert -> Picture, then browse to the .ps file you created in XCircuit.