Electrical Layout diagrams

[Chris1234]

Afternoon,

I need to create an electrical layout plan for a factory with around 30 DB’s.
What software would be best to use, I have AutoCAD electrical but that seems more for electrical control panels etc.
Currently I’m using AutoCAD and just drawing all the DB’s, but is there any free software?

Thanks.

 

[Spoon]

With AutoCAD you could get a DWG of the plan of the factory and then import that to your drawing and add your equipment. Then everything is to scale.
Why do you want to use some other software?

Below is a link for a search of "Drawing" in the title.

Search results for query: drawing

www.electriciansforums.net

 

[SparkyChick]

Whilst it's not free, I think for something like this I'd be talking to Modecsoft about ElectricalOM.

 

[Alex-SL]

Hello Chris,

There is a free software toolkit for electrical designers – MeteorSpec. It’s a CAD-plugin. Supported CAD platforms are AutoCAD® BricsCAD® and GstarCAD. You can find MeteorSpec on MeteorSpec LT - CAD software for analysis and designing low-voltage distribution networks - https://meteorspec.com/

The toolkit consists of the following components:

- MeteorSpec-NETWORK – software for simulation, analysis and calculation of 0.4kV distribution networks;

- MeteorSpec-ELECTRIC – collection of various calculators for electrical designers and students;

- MeteorSpec-PLINE – totally customizable multipurpose tool for summarizing lengths and areas of any objects that can be modeled by lightweight polylines.

 

[7upsgreat]

AutoCad every time. Once you're au-fait with it it's quick and easy

 

[Miguel Esteban-Perez]

Afternoon,

I need to create an electrical layout plan for a factory with around 30 DB’s.
What software would be best to use, I have AutoCAD electrical but that seems more for electrical control panels etc.
Currently I’m using AutoCAD and just drawing all the DB’s, but is there any free software?

Thanks.

it depends on. I´d usually use autocad 2D for one line diagrams and transformers, and some Revit for core busbars and busways.

 

[Miguel Esteban-Perez]

it depends on. I´d usually use autocad 2D for one line diagrams and transformers, and some Revit for core busbars and busways.

By the way, does anyone know about a webpage who offers cad blocks like transformers or unions between cables and tee elbow connections and things like that?

 

[Chivers]

I use https://www.canva.com/online-whiteboard/flowcharts/ for basic diagrams or do you need to have electrical sysmbols?

 

[manacho]

I use https://www.canva.com/online-whiteboard/flowcharts/ for basic diagrams or do you need to have electrical sysmbols?

try traceparts

 

[Mixtel]

It all depends on what you want. I spent years doing circuit & simple layout drawings using AutoCAD LT. I don't have that luxury now, so I use NanoCAD 5.0, which is similar enough to an early version of LT.

Products nanoCAD

nanoCAD - professional, cost-effective CAD Software with powerful 2D/3D modeling tools for viewing and drawing DWG files in engineering and architecture. Free download.

nanocad.com

NanoCAD 5 uses the AutoCAD 10 (IIRC) DWG format as well as DXF.

It's quite easy to design your own blocks for any symbols you need. If you keep them in a special drawing you can copy and paste them into your working drawing.

 

[Marvo]

This is a bit of an old thread so I'd guess the people asking questions already found their answer but many manufacturers and suppliers have CAD free downloadable files for their products on their website.

I do use AutoCAD MEP for extensive 3D and 2D drawings with multiple layers for different services but obviously it's not free. For simple 2D single layer layout drawings I still use a very old version of Microsoft Visio I once got bundled for free with an old version (probably 2000 or 2003 maybe) of MS Office Pro and it still runs fine on the latest windows.

Visio is blisteringly fast because it's shapes based so once you've built up a previously saved assortment of 'shapes' you just drag and drop them, resize and snap them into or group them with other elements. You can also import a basic .dwg or .dxf file into Visio and it will also save a Visio drawing as dxf and dwg CAD formats. I'm sure the later Visio versions are far more featured and probably bloated ...and probably cloud based but I don't know if there's still a free version bundled with the Microsoft Office packages.

 

[Mixtel]

Thanks, I should have checked the dates on more than just the last post. LOL.

 

[Marvo]

Just to add to my previous post Libre Office which is a free version of MS Office also has a copy version of Visio in it. I haven't personally used their version but I have used LibreOffice on some of my PC's and it works great.