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EPLAN vs. ACADE

15 REPLIES 15
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Message 1 of 16
juken
6946 Views, 15 Replies

EPLAN vs. ACADE

I've been using both programs as trialversions and found them to be very much on the same level as far as the generation of electrical drawings goes.
However ACADE has more ' bang for the bug' and seems much more user friendly when it comes to panel design and machine layouts.
A plus for EPLAN was its ability to produce PDF files, as well as the vendors collaboration with various manufacturers - Schneider Electric, Siemens ,Omron ,Weidmueller,Pilz and Phoenix Contact etc.
All of them offer their equipment data and ready made custom symbols of their products in "ready to be imported into the software" formats as free downloads on their websites.

I wonder if anything like this is available from autodesk.
15 REPLIES 15
Message 2 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: juken

Hi,

Thanks for your questions. As for writing PDF files natively, Autodesk has
its own lightweight file format called the DWF format which can be written
directly from within AutoCAD Electrical. A free DWF Viewer is available for
your downstream customers and suppliers. If writing PDF files is critical
and DWF is not an option, you can write these files directly out of AutoCAD
Electrical by using Adobe Acrobat.

Regarding vendor content, we are working directly with some of the vendors
you mention below to get them to provide their catalog content in a format
that can be easily brought into AutoCAD Electrical. We also have an
internal team of developers who is responsible for building manufacturer
catalog content as our customers request it. AutoCAD Electrical has a
database merge utility that makes it easy for users to bring content updates
into their library.

I hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Regards,
Scott Reese
Product Manager - AutoCAD Electrical
Autodesk, Inc.

============

wrote in message news:4924268@discussion.autodesk.com...
I've been using both programs as trialversions and found them to be very
much on the same level as far as the generation of electrical drawings goes.
However ACADE has more ' bang for the bug' and seems much more user friendly
when it comes to panel design and machine layouts.
A plus for EPLAN was its ability to produce PDF files, as well as the
vendors collaboration with various manufacturers - Schneider Electric,
Siemens ,Omron ,Weidmueller,Pilz and Phoenix Contact etc.
All of them offer their equipment data and ready made custom symbols of
their products in "ready to be imported into the software" formats as free
downloads on their websites.

I wonder if anything like this is available from autodesk.
Message 3 of 16
maomuckmar
in reply to: juken

pretty much an unfair comparrision

it not like for like

booth programmes have there strengths and weaknesses

from my point of view a fair comparrision between the two products in about 5-6 years when AE has ironed out its bugs and added on the features that the likes of eplan promis e and wscad have as standard which currently dont exist in AE

try setting up a terminal block with wire jumpers in ae

i know there are issues with the german sliced i/o approach (see my previous posting)

and the way it does terminal plans is awful

the thing i find very disturbing personally is the amount of workarounds being posted here

and having wires on mutiple layers i am being caught up in how the programme works constantly thinking about how to configue the drawing

rather then just thinking about the electrical design content
Message 4 of 16
Josdc
in reply to: juken

Dear Mr Reese.
Regarding availability of vendor content, when can we expect those catalogs? How will those catalogs be made available to the users?

Thanks in advance,

Jos
Message 5 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: juken

Hi Jos,

Today, the updates are delivered in each new release of AutoCAD Electrical.
Moving forward, we are investigating the feasibility of delivering
incremental updates between the release cycles.

Do you also think it would be valuable to make it easier for users to share
their custom catalogs with one another?

Thanks,
Scott


wrote in message news:4935903@discussion.autodesk.com...
Dear Mr Reese.
Regarding availability of vendor content, when can we expect those catalogs?
How will those catalogs be made available to the users?

Thanks in advance,

Jos
Message 6 of 16
Josdc
in reply to: juken

Thanks for your reply.

I believe that delivering updates between two releases is a necessity. Why not make it available for subscription program holders and place it on the subscription pages?

About sharing catalogs amongst users: who will guarantee the quality of the catalog?

My believe is that very urgently the most frequently used european catalogs need to be included in AE.

Regards,

Jos
Message 7 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: juken

Hi Jos,

I like your ideas. Specifically, what catalogs are you interested in. What
country are you in?

Regards,
Scott


wrote in message news:4937016@discussion.autodesk.com...
Thanks for your reply.

I believe that delivering updates between two releases is a necessity. Why
not make it available for subscription program holders and place it on the
subscription pages?

About sharing catalogs amongst users: who will guarantee the quality of the
catalog?

My believe is that very urgently the most frequently used european catalogs
need to be included in AE.

Regards,

Jos
Message 8 of 16
Josdc
in reply to: juken

Hi Scott,

I am from Belgium and especially interested in Télémecanique and Merlin Gerin.

Regards,

Jos
Message 9 of 16
dougmcalexander
in reply to: juken

My Friend, I started working for a German company in 1988. We used ELCAD until switching to the original Unix/MSDOS Promis-e in 1991. I have been designing to IEC standards/the standards to achieve the GS and CE ratings since before they were required in the USA. Promis-e got the job done but the learning curve was steep and the "work-arounds" were numerous. Things as simple as the angled wire were nearly impossible to achieve and get the wires to show up on the wire list with the correct wiring sequence. I had to create 11 different angled wire symbols to get by. Promis-e "promised" me that the problem would be solved by September 15th the year we purchased the program, 1991. It still was not corrected in 1997 when I switched to the program now known as AutoCAD Electrical. Promis-e was eventually "manipulated" to run inside AutoCAD's space, but it was not a true AutoCAD application. It was one program running inside another. I called it a "parasitic" application. We still decided to purchase two copies of Promis-e ADS and give it a try, because we already used the original Promis-e for schematics and AutoCAD to do panel layouts. Promis-e ADS crashed on install. In the box were 3 stapled sheets listing known bugs. I called for support to get the program installed but was told someone would have to call me back. It's a good thing I gave up or I would have stayed at work for 3 days waiting, since it took 3 days for someone to call me back. Once I got past the installation bugs, and started using the program, I found wires listed twice on my wirelist. It happened in every case where a wire left one page and went to another page via the Sig1 and Sig2 cross-referencing. I called support and they said, "that is a bug we have known about for a few years, but it is not considered by our programmers as bad enough to merit a top priority status." They told me to just export the wire list to a word processor and erase the duplicates, like I didn't know that. But that was not the point. It defeats the purpose of an ECAD tool for me to have to repair the wirelist, risking human error. My friend, an accurate wirelist is a basic requirement of an ECAD program. Shortly thereafter we bought the program that later became known as AutoCAD Electrical. Sure, there are a few things I hope to one day see in ACADE. I would like to be able to assign item numbers to Multiple BOM entries. But even as it ships today, I can assure you that AutoCAD Electrical is still my top choice, as I continue to design to IEC standards. By the way, it is an advantage having the wires separated by layers. You can mark wires in such a way to draw attention to standard "core" wires as opposed to wires associated with options. You can automatically wire-number an entire project without being bound to only one wire gauge and type, a limitation in other ECAD programs. When one fully understands the power of ACADE it becomes clear that there is no better tool. Of course there is a wish list of new features we would all like to see, but even today ACADE has no equal. Being a deeply committed Promis-e user from early 1991 until late 1997, I was extremely reluctant to change. But after I finally dug in and learned ACADE there was no turning back.


Doug McAlexander


Design Engineer/Consultant/Instructor/Mentor specializing in AutoCAD Electrical training and implementation support

Phone and Web-based Support Plans Available

Phone: (770) 841-8009

www.linkedin.com/in/doug-mcalexander-1a77623




Please Accept as Solution if I helped you. Likes are also much appreciated.
Message 10 of 16
maomuckmar
in reply to: juken

very interesting reply

it seems that i keep coming across the same defense when you mention any product that may be in the market which covers the same area as AutoCAD electrical

the defense is when we used xxxxxxx some years ago it did not or does not do this

i have even had that from reseller's as well

note to sales team is this corporate policy to rubbish you opposition using older versions because you know that you cant stand a like for like comparison against latest versions of the oppositions
software

i would like to use the same defense as you guys against AutoCAD electrical but since its a relatively new product (discounting the fact that it was a bought in product)

heres my personal take on it

and i am baseing my comments on like for like with the latest versions of each software

autocad electrical its very slow even when its not in mdi mode

i can design far faster in Eplan, promis e and wscad than AutoCAD electrical

i would guess i can draft in Eplan at least 5 times faster then AutoCAD electrical

example i had it running on a high spec laptop
files on the c drive

and was running Eplan 5.6 on a bog standard desktop over a network where the server was in another building

these were side by side

just paging down Eplan blew it away

i wont go into speed comparison on other functions as it got very embarrassing for AutoCAD electrical

and myself as i was demonstrating it to a person who was thinking of buying it (lost a sale there autodesk)

(the Eplan project had approx 700 pages )

the AutoCAD project was the iec demo(20 pages ?)

it appears the guys at autodesk pay lip service to iec standards
look at the test drive manual

75% of it involves the jic examples

theres a non existent manual so rather than looking up functions we struggle with what we have and then post questions

intresting though i had a reseller claim that autodesk was no longer going to ship paper manuals and this was the reason why there is no paper manuals for autocad electrical

you should then tell the other divisions in autodesk about this as they obvoisly havent been told yet and are still shipping paper manuals !!!!!!


AutoCAD cant at present handle sliced i/o see nates response on that in a previous posting

which covers approx 50% of my clients so i cant use AutoCAD electrical for them

the terminal charts are total rubbish when we stopped laughing at them we realised our wireman were never going to use them

and was proved right we had a near riot in the panel shop

its got problems with links and wires in the terminal blocks see previous postings

technical support via reseller's is nonexistent in europe

with the competitors you can speak to a person who knows the product from an electrical engineering viewpoint rather than a software viewpoint

theres a very interesting story floating around about a company that was looking at promis e and AutoCAD electrical

the story goes that they purchased promis e as the technical support was far superior to AutoCAD electrical even though they were in the same building as the AutoCAD reseller that was trying to sell them AutoCAD electrical !!!!!

myth or truth from my perspective it could very well be true from my dealings with AutoCAD reseller's !!

and if you think product xxxxx has problems just take a troll through this discussion group and see how many work around's mods & frigs you need to get it to work effectively

do you want to count up thoose against the list youve produced for an out of date version of promis e ?

and to recap my previous posting when AutoCAD electrical has been around a few more years and autodesk has thrown a mountain of money at it then it will be a decent product

but until then i will struggle on with it and keep adding to my wish list which at the top of the page starts like

product xxxxxxxxxx does this why cant AutoCAD electrical do that ?
Message 11 of 16
dougmcalexander
in reply to: juken

It appears to me that you have already decided against AutoCAD Electrical. So why concern yourself with AutoCAD Electrical? We made our side-by-side comparisons with the current version of each product when we made the move to AutoCAD Electrical and have never regretted that decision. Our company of over 4,000 employees put together a committee to compare ECAD programs before switching away from the UNIX/DOS Promis-e. The first program we looked at was Promis-e ADS for obvious reasons. We felt that the learning curve would be easier. But in the end, the committee voted unanimously for AutoCAD Electrical. We still purchased two copies of Promis-e ADS to support our customers who prefer it. But we only use Promis-e ADS when required by a particular customer. And we only have one customer who still prefers it. But again, it seems that you prefer something other than AutoCAD Electrical, so why bother with AutoCAD Electrical?


Doug McAlexander


Design Engineer/Consultant/Instructor/Mentor specializing in AutoCAD Electrical training and implementation support

Phone and Web-based Support Plans Available

Phone: (770) 841-8009

www.linkedin.com/in/doug-mcalexander-1a77623




Please Accept as Solution if I helped you. Likes are also much appreciated.
Message 12 of 16
maomuckmar
in reply to: juken

Pretty bland response from you there I can see your starting to back away
Didn’t expect a response like that no specific response to my post just the usual defensive posturing and evasions

I am pretty cynical about all things and don't take things at face value

I am not anti AutoCAD electrical

I am not settled on any particular product its all customer lead if they want AutoCAD electrical they get it if they want someone else's product we supply it

but if you want to make accusations about products based on recollections of how the product worked 10 years ago

I think its only fair that you use the same criteria when comparing AutoCAD electrical with any other electrical design product

so dig out your 10 year old copy of AutoCAD electrical and we will compare it using your preferred method with the latest versions of Eplan Promis e & Wscad ?

Does that sound fair?

And that's the point I am trying to make here from my experience all the bashing of the opposition is based on how it used to work
So much so it gets me to wondering why people put so much effort into using old information
And hence I make a point of finding out if the facts fit the picture being painted

when you set AutoCAD electrical 2006 against the latest versions of the opposition you then realise that no they are not so different in capabilities

And it takes no genius to work out that AutoDesk wants all those promis e stations out there

so much so they have added a promis e migration too in the 2006 release
And why should I bother with AutoCAD electrical
Well there’s an interesting point

1) Never commit yourselves to one design package to the exclusion of all others
its kept us going for the last 15years being able to offer different packages and services
2) Quite simply because AutoCAD have such poor authorisation algorithms to the point that cracked versions of AutoCAD electrical 2006 appeared on the internet days after the launch, Colleges are full of students now running cracked versions of AutoCAD electrical in about 5 years time I will be able to get drafters in at £5 per hour instead of paying up to £25 per hour simple economics
Message 13 of 16
rjtcm1
in reply to: juken

I know this is a late observation guys, but you both have missed many of the REAL points here. hmmm.... maybe I'll write a book about it all .... ha ha ... but just note ... there was a thing called " Atrix " (I think I spelled it right) and IF I'm not getting too old to remember, that was Promis-E marketed by Autodesk. It did not succeed for a reason. Can you guess WHY ? Itls kinda like, why didn't " Communism " succeed ?
Message 14 of 16
Dennis_Greenburg01
in reply to: juken

Well - you must be getting too old, because ACTRIX was NOT promis-e resold under Autodesk. First, the name was Actrix and it was developed by AutoDesk to compete against Visio when those two were unfriendly to each other. At that time the Visio guys also started the IntelliCAD development. So I assume there was some bad blood there. Anyway AutoDesk, to make Actrix more attractive, contracted 4 partners to develop symbol catalogs for Actrix and the promis-e folks were chosen to do the electrical symbols. The other partners were, Coldstream, EAI, and Peregrine Systems. The promis-e folks had nothing to do with the development of Actrix only a supplier of symbol catalogs. After Microsoft bought Visio, AutoDesk scrapped the Actrix development. The reason I know this I was a beta tester for Actrix many moons ago.

So going by your theory, you shouldnt by anything by Autodesk. Another attempt at getting into a market that they do not understand. Once ACE doesnt fly, just like Actrix, they'll most likely scrap it, when it doesnt make them enough money. Their re-sellers cant domo it, they cant support it, and they just got into another market that they really dont understand. ACE doesnt compare to the competitors. They store all of the information in the drawings which is why you have to scan the project over and over and over everytime you want to do something useful. I use it on projects because I have to - propmis-e is my software of choice Hands Down!
Message 15 of 16
dougmcalexander
in reply to: juken

You may need a refresher in ACE my friend. ACE creates a "scratchpad" database at the beginning of a project and it updates on the fly as necessary. It references this database to avoid scanning drawings. Having had some Promis-e data files get corrupted and having to use their repair utility I can tell you it is quite comforting to know that everything is stored in the DWG file with ACE. In fact, the scratchpad database can be erased any time you wish. ACE will recreate it as needed. It can create a new database quicker than you can get a cup of coffee. And when you send a set of drawings to your customer, they only need the DWG files, no databases, no symbol libraries, macros, etc. Everything is contained within the DWG files at all times. Your customer can actually use a standard copy of AutoCAD to view the attributes contained within the components in the DWG file. In fact any viewer that allows the user to see attributes can display things like manufacturer, part number, wire number, etc. Of course ACE adds the horsepower to extract this information into a plethora of different reports. ACE has been functioning this way since the beginning. The database has always been in an open architecture format as well. I can use MS Access to view and edit the database if I wish. Promis-e has made many adjustments over the years to be more like ACE. I was a Promis-e user since 1991 and ACE user since 1997. I have watched as ACE took over and Promis-e made the changes necessary to be more like ACE.


Doug McAlexander


Design Engineer/Consultant/Instructor/Mentor specializing in AutoCAD Electrical training and implementation support

Phone and Web-based Support Plans Available

Phone: (770) 841-8009

www.linkedin.com/in/doug-mcalexander-1a77623




Please Accept as Solution if I helped you. Likes are also much appreciated.
Message 16 of 16
KB_GEIT
in reply to: juken

Hello.

How often are parts catalogs currently updated? Were they ever included in the subscriptions?

Kevin

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