Struggling hard with Autocad Electrical

[Anonymous]

Title pretty much sums it up. I just switched jobs and I thought for sure this company would have standards set up in Electical for panel designs. But alas not to be. How do I get started with PLC panel designs? I just want to start with using the right parts so my panel layout is easier. I have been doing it by hand for too long.

Does anybody have some good resources to get started? I am about 6 hours deep into the YouTube rabbit hole but everything seems piecemeal and not all encompassing.

[pendean]

Start here while you wait https://www.google.com/search?q=autocad+electrical%3A+get+started+with+PLC+panel+designs

[jseefdrumr]

So really that's a very wide-open question. There are lots of different ways to do this.

Start with the Hitchhiker's Guide to AutoCAD Electrical - it's on the F1 'home page'. Review how the software works with panel layouts. This will help you narrow down exactly which things you need to focus on learning.

For example, are you also drawing schematics? If so, do you want to lay out the panel first, or draw the schematics first? Do you intend to link the schematic symbols to their panel footprints? Each workflow has different things to know. You might not even know what you want to do, until you learn what you CAN do. (That's how it worked for me.)

So start with the general process, and try to narrow down your options. Once you gain a more focused idea on what exactly you want to do, it will be easier to come up with a guideline - for you, and for the rest of the forum.

[ccad2509]

Unfortunately, your pretty much stuffed!!!!

if you don’t have somebody that is already at your new company using Acade to guide you then it’s a long struggle

you need to consider the following

• How does you company workflow work
• What does panel build expect for documentation?
• Can you improve the documentation with Acade’s reports?
• How are you going to utilise the database?
  • Check which common parts exist in the database
  • Do they have footprint details assigned to them?
  • How long is it going to take you to create the missing parts
• How to structure your project
  • If you are building the same panels again and again, how do you replicate the designs
  • How do you implement design variations?
  • How do you feed back as built into the design for continuous improvement?
• What is your workflow
  • What are your expected deliverables on a project?
  • What are you time frames (managements unrealistic expectations on the ecad system typically it takes between 6-months and a year to get a system to work the way you want it to work without doing project work has that been factored in)?
• No there isn’t a magic tutorial out there to solve your problems as everybody implements ACADE their own way there is no such thing as a standard set-upsorry but your in for a long fight/struggle to get everthing working the way you want

[dsnodgrass]

Years ago Nate Holt created some basic tutorials, but I'm not sure how relevant they are now.

Tutorial – Basics of ‘Smart’ Panel Layout (Part 1)  
Tutorial – Basics of ‘Smart’ Panel Layout (Part 2)  
Tutorial – Basics of ‘Smart’ Panel Layout (Part 3)
Tutorial – Mapping schematic components to panel layout
Tutorial – Automatic Wire Annotation from Schematic to W/D (Part 1)