New features in ACADE 2014

[CAD-ICE]

Helllo all,

I was trying to find some info on new features introduced in the 2014 version of Autocad Electrical.

I haven´t been able to find anything which I find strange since the product is already released!

If someone could point me into the right direction I would really appreciate that.

Thanks in adcance, Gary

[vladop]

What's New in AutoCAD Electrical 2014

Autodesk 360 and AutoCAD Electrical

Store your projects or individual files in Autodesk 360 and access them from anywhere. Autodesk 360 offers secure access to design files so you can store, edit work, and share work confidently.

• Control access to your files
• Share files as view only, view and download, or full access
• View and add comments
• Edit drawings online in AutoCAD WS

Design Feed and AutoCAD Electrical

Design Feed provides a way of entering collaborative posts about a drawing in both real-time and asynchronous modes. Posts appear with the related drawings on the desktop, on the web, and across mobile devices.

When you create a post, you use the Design Feed palette to enter a text message and/or attach an image that conveys what you want to express about the drawing to which the post is attached. You can link the original post to a point, area, or object in the drawing. You can also tag colleagues and clients to notify them of your post. Notifications are sent to them through email and within AutoCAD Electrical.

Once you have committed a post, it is uploaded to Autodesk 360 with the drawing, along with any images you've attached. From there, colleagues and clients can access it and post their replies. Replies are listed as "children" below the original "parent" post. If there are no replies, the original post can stand by itself.

When the questions in a post and its replies are no longer active, you can resolve the thread to hide it from the Design Feed.

Metric Panel Libraries

Panel footprint symbols are now available in metric. The inch and metric panel libraries are both installed during installation. To use the metric version, set the Project Properties Project Settings  Panel Footprint Libraries path to:

• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Autodesk\Acade {version}\Libs\panel_mm
• Windows 7, 8: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Acade {version}\Libs\panel_mm

Language Support

The language database, wd_lang1.mdb, now includes the following languages:

• Danish
• Swedish
• Norwegian
• Finnish

The language database is used by the Language Conversion tool which converts description and switch position component text.

Autodesk Inventor Integration

The Export to Inventor tool is updated as follows:

• Include all components
• Parent and child components treated as one device
• Option to export terminals as terminal strips
• No duplication of terminal numbers
• Level number appended to the terminal number for multi-level terminals
• Terminal numbers in numeric order

Startup Experience

The new Welcome Screen provides links to:

• Create or open a drawing
• Open recently used drawings
• View the Essentials Videos
• Autodesk Exchange Apps store
• Autodesk 360

Select Help drop-down  Learning Tools  Welcome Screen to relaunch the Welcome Screen after start up.

Help Updates

Five new videos were added to the Essentials Videos series. The Essentials Videos were moved from the Help to the Welcome Screen.

[CAD-ICE]

Thank you Vladop for your inpuiated!t wery much appreciated! Are these features especially Autodesk 360 documented somewhere? Thank´s again and regards, Gary

[vladop]

See AutoCAD 2014 Help or What's new videos. I think these are AutoCAD features and there is nothing specific to ACAD Electrical.

[John]

So let me get this right:

1. A way of storing drawings in the cloud - I can use Dropbox, Spider Oak... Many others.

2. Exporting to Inventor. - I don't have.

3. Metric panel symbols - I create my own anyway. Never used any provided panel symbols.

4. Some new languages.

5. A new welcome screen (sorry "Startup Experence").

How much do I have to pay for this?

What about making a terminal rail editor that really works? That I can save and return to later half-way through editing. So I don't have to abandon 1/2 hours work when I find a problem with a schematic terminal. That dosn't crash 5 times out of ten. That has a window that can be re-sized. Jumper links between terminals (not just between levels). The ability to have multiple schematic symbols of the same panel terminal. Etc, etc.

I have to say I have stepped off the update roundabout.

[stefan.stamate]

You might want to try a different package. There is another software out there (ePlan) who can do a lot more but it also costs more. The terminal editor is not required as you have a terminal navigator and you can insert the whole terminal strip or just part of it in your layout. The challenges are that you have to wrap your head around it as it built totally different from AutoCAD. I am using it for 4 months now and it only crashed twice so far. It's not an easy switch-over though...

[CAD-ICE]

Hello Stefan and thank´s for the input. Our company had someone from Eplan to introduce the software and what we saw was quite impressive. Hovever as you mention, the price is conciderably higher and the features given would hardly pay back the extensive cost. The guy who introduced E-plan told us that after a 4-5 day´s course the user would  be capable of working without external help. I was supriced when I asked if he could demonstrate how to build a simple symbol in Eplan, he wasn´t able to demonstrate this so that might indicate that this software isn´t easy to handle.

Thank again, Gary

[stefan.stamate]

Creating a symbol is not that hard, I am surprised that he didn't know. Also they don't want you to generate new symbols as they will be wiped out on the next version upgrade of the software. From my experience: there's already a symbol for all the things that you need, you just have to find it...

And yes, you will be able to generate drawings after the 5 days course but don't expect final drawings. It takes lots of effort at the beginning. I love the 3D panel layout, the dynamic reports, the fact that all the labels, BOMs, wire connections can be generated in a couple of minutes (as they are reports), Smart pdf, the macros and different variants stored in them so you can easily switch between different configurations, and also the placeholder feature which gives you the option to select different HP ratings for your VFD/Motor starter components and all the components connected to that placeholder will be updated right away. The Data Portal is also great.

Cheers,

Stefan