2012 AutoCAD Mechanical / Electrical Imstallation best Practices

jasongander · ‎01-16-2013

Hi,

I have a bit of a long winded question for the forum.

Currently our installation is pushed from IT. We provide the support paths to where our custom CUI files and plotting/publishing files are located on our network. We also have a network location for where our blocks, borders etc are located and these files are accessed by both ACAD mechanical installations and ACAD electrical installations by adding and changing our support paths to these network locations.

Recently we have been having network slow downs and other related issues including non functionality and random errors that seem to be caused by this form of installation.

Our reseller has recommended we move all these files to vault, which is what we are using for our drawings anyway... but they didn't have any documentation or information on how to do this but they would be happy to come in and set us up but we don't want to have to pay every time we make a change. My question is, is this the best way to complete our installation and how do I go about completing this install. I can't have my team checking out CUIX files from vault and loading them every morning so I am looking to you to see if there is a best practice out there that I can follow.

I need 3 things:

1.) To be able to manage all our customizations and be able to update them so they can be accessed from a central location.

2.) to be able to control these files so people are not using older versions or bugged versions

3.) All the functions of Mechanical and Electrical to work. This last one wasn't an issue when we were not using all the extra symbols and libraries but we want to use them to make us more efficient.

Thank you in advance.

Jason

johnq · ‎02-27-2013

Hi Jason

You ask some interesting questions and I am not surprised more learnered folks than me have not answered.

My background: electrician then electronics fixing computers to chip level before Intel 286 CPUs. Networking specialist from thick LAN to Cat 5, bridges and routers. I have used ACE2007/11/12 and AC since R14. Installing AC for customers.

I have not used a networking version of ACE BUT I do know it is cumberson to use a two, single licence systems and keep the symbol data bases up to date.

One person needs to be the creater of symbols and as symbols are created update all computers daily. We never did solve the problem of consistant linking ICON Menues to be the same for each user.

I feel that the networking version would fix this. That is probably why it is more expensive.

As for hardware I would like to work for a company that has a dedicated CAD server that has two network cards.

One to drive a suitable HUB/Switch for the CAD machines and one to the rest of the company.

The PC networks that I have seen where there is CAD there seems to be one big network.

An ACE circuit diagram is VERY much larger than the same circuit drawn in CAD using WBLOCKs. Subjectivally 5 to 10 times. TYpically my ACE drawings are around 200kBytes.

Besides the Autosave in AC/ACE I save before I swap from one drawing to another. WHY? At my current location the virus software runs about every minute and causes me problems.

There are many discussions on this forum about ACE failing with "FATAL ERRORS" This happens mostly to me about twics a week when I am closing a multi drawing project. Mostly I do not loose data and ACE mostly does a good job of RECOVERY.

I would be quizing your supplier in great detail about the concept of VAULT fixing your problems when it adds more overhead.

AutoDESK acknowledges that some virus programs are incompatable with ACE but there seem not seem to be any LISTS as to what packages they are.

In my case SOPHOS at odd time seems to be sparked by events and kicks off, ties up my computer to the point that ACE will not excuite commands.

The dark blue bar in the resource monitor is used to indicate this problem. I have 8GB memory and if I do not have at least 2GB of light blue memory I am usually in trouble.

This makes learning new features difficult as I do not know if it me or the computer just not working.

When SOPHOS has one of its tantrames it fillsl memory. Any work I do during this time, later causes problems.

Google sophos for other users impression of SOPHOS.. For me changing is not possible as it is a company decision.

I have studied Inventor at a Governmnet Trainging colllage in Australia (TAFE) I also did a cource with a suplier. The supliers training room had a low speed Pentium in the room as a server( it also gave access to the rest of the company) a medium priced hub and fairly standard desktops BUT very good CAD graphics cards. NOT a good gaming card that IT folks seem to think is OK for CAD.

I had that discussion when I am now, I have many problems with my computer , I do not have a supported graphics card. In OZ a CAD card is about 3 time the cost of a good gaming cad.

Back when Microstation and networks were on 10MB coax. Microstation saved the screen as soon as a line was drawn. My understanding of PCs is that while CAT5/6 has TX & RX circuits PCs only can do one or the other.

I have an I7 CPU but as I only have one physical disk in my computer, there is no speed imporovement over my last machine which was just a good Pentium.

I have used ELECDES which is an ELEctrical program that runs on AutoCAD. It has similiar problems as to where to store the symbol files.

This is all my experience with ACE & networks which I hope might you to have a dedicated server with a bridge to the rest of the company.

I hope this is of some help and I have not told you too much of what you alread know.

Regards john quigley