BOOK for Electrical 2004

[Anonymous]

The company that I work for bought AE2004 for me and boy it is not a treat to work with ...........HOW DO YOU LEARN IT.............I was using AutoCAD 2000i and Now have been trying to figure out AE2004 to do POINT-TO-POINT......drawings for wire harnesses..............
The help files are of now help and the little book that comes with the software is chinsy.........

I cannot find anywhere that one can buy a book for AUTOCAD ELECTRICAL 2004...............NICE .........YEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAA

It's real nice that my company has spent $4000 on this program and now they are wanting to see some return on there investment..............

NO training is not a option from me ........

NO WE ARE NOT GOING TO BUY .......INVENTOR PRO (for the wire harness capability)..........there is no available to the public on how to do work with the Wire harness module in Inventor Pro either...............WHY MUST ONE HAVE TO GO TO TRAINING TO RUN AUTODESK'S LATEST AND GREATEST FEATURES..?????????????..................


THANKS for Nutchin

[Anonymous]

Lost - Why don't you post a specific example of something in the program you are having a problem with??? Also include the specs on the machine you are using. Peer to peer support can often talk you through a basic question. Hopefully you have run through any tutorials and the help files? -- Anne Brown Discussion Groups Administrator Autodesk, Inc. Lost_boy wrote: > > The company that I work for bought AE2004 for me and boy it is not a treat to work with ...........HOW DO YOU LEARN IT... (snip)

[MartinLee]

The "book" that you are wanting is in the Help files. I have a "real book" from Via-WD 2002, and it is pretty much what is now found in the Help files. Autodesk is keeping the cost of the product down by not printing expensive books.

The User's Guide, Turorial, and Command guide are all you need. A training class would certainly hellp, but all that would do is get you started. They go through the basic commands and features. Then it's up to you to apply that to your work needs. You can also see how some things are done by looking at the sample project that comes with the product.

As for your company's investment, if you are new to AutoCAD Electrical, you can expect a four to six month learning curve. It's just a matter of sitting at the computer and doing it, making mistakes and going back and fixing them. Patience is the key! But if you stick with it, I assure you it will pay off. We at my company did not attend any traiining class. We learned by doing, so it is possible. That was five years ago, and we have never looked back.

Sorry that I can't help you with the wiring harness as we don't use them in our processes. Good Luck.

[Anonymous]

What I need help or some examples in are how to do POINT-TO-POINT..........The Help files do not show much on how to do this.............What I would like AE2004 to be able to do is to generate a to and from Wire Report such as the one on the dwg that I have attached...........Is it possible or not?????????

[Anonymous]

Send me an example of what your typical point-to-point drawing looks like.

I will give it a look and get back to you.

Doug B

[Anonymous]

POINT TO POINT DWG FOR DOUG B.

Here you go Doug.......hope you have some ideas.......

Thanks

[Anonymous]

There is a company in Smyrna, Georgia called Repro Products that does AutoCAD Electrical training. Their website is www.reproproducts.com

[Jay Mackey]

The 'User Guide' and 'Command Reference' referred to above are for the base ACAD 2004 product, not ACAD Electrical.

I am not happy at all with the documentation included with ACAD Electrical 2004. The only ACAD Electrical pdf doc is the 'Getting Started' guide that appears to be very similar in content to the tutorials in the online Windows help, providing mostly duplicate information. The online help appears to be the main documentation for the program. This is your only 'documentation' as far as I have been able to find in my searching. The online help may be moderately complete in terms of a reference manual, but it's probably easier to get the truth out of Bill Clinton than it is to find out what you really need to know about a complex system from the average reference manual.

I only have the AE 2004 'documentation' and the VIA WD r16 documentation. Would the WD r16 documentation help me get up to speed more quickly, or is it too far removed from AE 2004?

Thanks,

Jay

[rstein]

Jay,
One thing you might not have known is Autodesk doesn't write the "books" that you can buy. One thing you could do is contact your local reseller and take a training class. This has been very helpful to people I have talked to.

[Anonymous]

Jay If you go to the HELP pull down menu and select ELECTRICAL HELP TOPICS, you then will be able to select the CONTENTS tab and then expand the USER'S GUIDE. This guide is broken up into different chapters for the different categories of features in the ELECTRICAL product. In the old VIA products, the printed manual that was supplied was a copy of the information that was in the online User's Guide. If there were a printed manuals available, I am sure it would be the same information that is in this User's Guide. If there is information that you cannot find in this User's Guide, you can post your specific queries to this newsgroup and I am sure that many of the people here would be more than happy to answer your questions for you or to point you to a location where they have found some documentation on your particular subjects. We would just need specific details on exactly what it is you are trying or wanting to do. Good Luck!! I hope this helps and all goes well!! -- ---- Regards, Jared Bunch Technical Support Specialist Autodesk, Inc. -------------------------------------------------------- "Jay Mackey" wrote in message news:30530167.1087929110200.JavaMail.jive@jiveforum2.autodesk.com... > The 'User Guide' and 'Command Reference' referred to above are for the base ACAD 2004 product, not ACAD Electrical. > > I am not happy at all with the documentation included with ACAD Electrical 2004. The only ACAD Electrical pdf doc is the 'Getting Started' guide that appears to be very similar in content to the tutorials in the online Windows help, providing mostly duplicate information. The online help appears to be the main documentation for the program. This is your only 'documentation' as far as I have been able to find in my searching. The online help may be moderately complete in terms of a reference manual, but it's probably easier to get the truth out of Bill Clinton than it is to find out what you really need to know about a complex system from the average reference manual. > > I only have the AE 2004 'documentation' and the VIA WD r16 documentation. Would the WD r16 documentation help me get up to speed more quickly, or is it too far removed from AE 2004? > > Thanks, > > Jay

[Jay Mackey]

Yes, but as always, the situation is that we are in a time-crunch, and will probably muddle through. The drawings produced will not be as good or well-done as they could have been, but they will be OK. I would love to have time to go get the training, no doubt about it!

[Jay Mackey]

Thanks... yes, the Electrical Help Topics is what I was referring to by 'online help'.

After comparing the WD r16 docs to the online help in ACAD Electrical 2004, I believe that they are almost identical, so the current AutoCAD Electrical documentation is not actually any worse than previous documentation. One issue for some people is that you can't print out the online help as a single document at one time as you can with a .pdf. You can only print one 'topic' at a time.

One of my particular issues is trying to find out more about wire signals and implementing them throughout my drawing correctly from the 480 3 phase inputs on page one to the 24V power levels on the I/O pages. After reading every page related to wire signals, and going through the tutorial as well, It's still fuzzy.

[rstein]

That is always the case, unfortunatley. But you have to admit it is a good thing that you are busy with the way things have been lately.

Maybe post specifics that we can help you with.

[ssherwick]

Marty,

With all due respect what you're saying here is nothing but repeating the party line.

Just because Autodesk acquires a product does not mean I have to lower my expectations for the deliverables.

I have 8 seats here under software support, we have had them since they were VIA licenses.

EVERY upgrade but the one to ACADE included a manual.

The cost issue is a nonissue, the online help files were always extracted from the manual documentation or vice versa, the only thing being saved here is dead trees.

I for one demanded and paid for manuals in the past and a little put off I can't get them now.

Online help may be useable and accurate but it is NOT convenient. I HATE having to page back and forth between the drawing and the help file when I could just as easily have the manual sitting next to me.

I'd even settle for a PDF of the manual as was provided with one of the 16.X versions.

And don't even GET me talking about the lack of competent phone support. Our staff is better able to support the product than our dealer is. If we have a question it's so far above their level they need oxygen masks 🙂

Whew!!! I feel better now, venting is good for you now and again.

Regards,
Steve

[bandit]

YEAAAA.............WHAT HE SAID.......

[amt_controls]

ssherwick
I totally agree. That way you can write notes in it, mark certain pages then highlight them. It's much easier to work with if you have a manual.