Eplan Electrical Symbol Library
Jun 14, 2013 - Macros for EPLAN Electric P8 make project planning easier. This risk is eliminated as is the time consuming manual creation of symbols. Jul 3, 2017 - I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. Just click “Edit Text” or double click me to add your own content and.
Hi ElecPneuGuy, Not wishing to start a flame war, but I've been using EPlan for the past 6 years. In those years I've used the software, trained people to use it and developped custom solutions with the API. I think I can say I know the software.
When I see comments like yours, I can't help but getting goosebumps. How can you possibly think that you can be any faster with a software where EVERYTHING has to be done manually, as opposed to a software that automates a lot of menial tasks? As a concrete example, how much time do you spend on a project just updating component cross-references (such as coil/contact xref)? And I'm not talking 2 pages projects.
If that's your case, then by all mean EPlan is not for you. I'm talking hundreds of pages projects. Just try renumbering the pages and then make sure all the xrefs are good.
Then what about updates to usual reports such as BOM? Customer calls and says he wants to switch PLC supplier. You know the feeling if you've ever had to deal with fair sized projects. As with any software of this magnitude, there is of course a learning curve and a commissioning phase that requires time and commitment. After all, how much time did you spend customizing AutoCAD to the point where you have it today? Same goes for any other software. Then you mention taking some form of training with GM.
My understanding is that GM only offered those trainings to experienced EPlan users cause they wanted to train people on how to use the GM setup. This has nothing to do with basic EPlan training.
If you went to this training without any previous EPlan exposure, then of course you will feel lost and overwhelmed. I hope you will eventually take the time to give the software a real test drive. GM has established EPlan as the standard, internally and externally, for electrical drawings. If you're a machine tool supplier to GM, you are expected to have EPlan P8 and someone on staff that is qualified to use it. GM-employed engineers have to get the certification, too. They put on a 4 day 'crash course' on the basics of EPlan to try to get everyone up to speed.
Of course, you can only get your feet wet in 4 days, it takes much longer than that to master it. I took the course, and I can understand why they consider it good business to make everyone use a tool like EPlan. Does it make sense for everyone to stop using autocad though? Probably not. Yeah, I know, autocad was meant for mechanical drawings, and us electrical guys are forcing it to do something it wasn't meant to do. But by the same token, spreadsheets were only supposed to be for accountants and we make pretty good use of those, too. I find AutoCAD faster as well - at least right now, for me, for project size we usualy do and for variety of hardware we encounter on a day to day basis.
Integrated project is nice thing to have, specially when large. On a large scale project automatic referencing wins hands down, just like using same hardware over and over. Unfortunately this doesn't apply to everyone (us for example) where most projects are 60-100 pages and hardware is diffrent making constant upgrades of the parts library very time consuming. In fact when I was first introduced to ePlan, it only had products from handfull of European companies (I hope this has changed). Things that seamed slow in AutoCAD are numbering of wire lables etc.
when done manually. This is long obsolete and I hope nobody is doing it one line at a time. One can dramatically cut this time down using basic copy and paste, small tools like DDNUMB, blocks with references or embeded variables etc. Another thing is BOM. It's tedious to do by hand but who likes that? We have created small utility that reads project data from our purchasing database and generates BOM pages in AutoCAD files which is a snap.
On small projects (25 pages or less) 1h/page seam to work just fine, less time per page on larger ones thanks to copy and paste and few little things we use. Doing cad is only relatively small fraction of the time spent of project (just like programming). Biggest part is research. Hi Panic, A few points to be noted here. You mention a host of in-house tools that you (or someone else) developped to get things done right, ie the way EPlan (or other similar software) does it.
Everyone knows that those tools are costly to develop and maintain. Be honest, and add up the cost of all those in-house tools. Not to mention what happens when the guy who wrote them goes to work somewhere else. Second, you say you find it hard to maintain the part database, but then you mention the purchasing database. Well, in case you didn't know, EPlan is quite happy using such a 3rd party database. All you have to do is map the fields once, and there you go. You are right that CAD is only a small part of the design process, and that's precisely where specialized tools come in handy.
On the other hand, documentation is not a small part of the design process, and when you have an integrated tool that allows you to cut down on time and errors, well, why not use it? I can understand people resisting change. That's part of human experience.
What I have more problem understanding is people insisting on using a screwdriver to drive a nail I've used AutoCAD for many years to do my electrical CAD, and I've also used other software packages, such as Xelec, Promis-e and of course EPlan (both EPlan 21 and EPlan P8), and I never want to go back to using AutoCAD for that purpose. I've tried AutoCAD electrical a little bit, and it seems like a decent product also.
I wish I had time to try it more, but I'm keeping busy with other projects. I guess I just want to conclude with this: what I like about those solutions is the fact that they are integrated, and save you from a lot of errors. Hi Luc, don't take me wrong, i know very well what advantages I would expect from such product: we have heard about and tried just about everything out there (EC Cad, Via, See2000/4000, promise, you name it) and i don't mean trialware or test ride for two-three weeks. We have sent guys for training, got full versions of the product etc. The products have been used for considerable time by several designers and on number of projects. Yet we have always came back to plain AutoCAD because all advantages those other tools offered, were not nearly enough to offset problems they introduced. I didn't try AutoCAD Electrical yet but i've just lost interest after so many dissapointments and spent time and hard cash.
It's what i don't know (or don't know enough) that concerns me. Perhaps you can explain why we should consider it. Like I already mentioned, I've been using EPlan for more than 6 years now, and am very happy with it. All the excuses that you brought up are the same that we keep getting over and over from people using AutoCAD. Let me ask you a simple question. You critic the 'lack' of parts database for EPlan. Can I please ask you where such parts databases are available for AutoCAD?
Or are you refering to blocks? If you are indeed talking about parts data (part number, electrical characteristics, dimensions etc.), then where are those databases for AutoCAD? How do they integrate with AutoCAD? How do you extract a BOM from AutoCAD drawings?
The answer is that there are NO parts database whatsoever designed for AutoCAD use. You have to build your own. How is that any different than with EPlan, which at least has the advantage of offering an out of the box parts management interface + database? Also, how is DRM a bad thing?
I'll tell you. In my experience, almost every business in north america use pirate copies of AutoCAD. The fact that EPlan is harder to crack seems to be a negative side only to those people who would actually ENJOY being able to use a cracked version and not have to pay for it. Of course you won't admit to it, but is your copy of AutoCAD legit? You speak of more than one edition of the software as being a bad thing.
Ever heard of AutoCAD LT? Then you go on talking about the quality of the corporate web site as a decisive factor. And you are 100% wrong about EPlan installing in root of C: drive. Get your facts straight. I could keep replying to all your affirmations, but I feel it's a waste of time. I see that you'll never be convinced no matter what I say. Live long and prosper.
Hi luc, i am not trying to put the product down, just trying to learn more. I expressed my opinion, concerns and explained what turns me off in a software product. C: EPLAN was shown in brochures i found on ePlan's website since i could not try software myself.
Keep in mind i'm not the only one who reads this or could use some convincing, avoiding answers is not going to help creating warm feeling about any product. Judging by absence of comments from more users, this product could use some promoting. Ok, Let's try to backtrack a bit. You have been throwing a lot of dirt at a product that you have never tried. Thus my strong reaction. Let me now try to answer your concerns. I really wish you take the time to read this through, as I've taken some of my precious sleep time to write it.
First of all, I've been in the automation business for some 15 years now. I've been using CAD software since then, and of course AutoCAD was the first one I learned in technical college. Along the way, I got to try Xelec and Promis-e in production enviroments. I haven't liked them. Then, in 2002, we started to look for a more complete package, and we tried Eplan 21. We ended up buying it, as it really saved us a lot of time and errors.
In 2005, I started on my own, and got a license of Eplan P8 this time. Newer version, more functionalities etc. As a freelancer, I also gave training for both Eplan 21 and Eplan P8.
So I'm both a user and trainer, but mostly a user, as training is not really my cup of tea. During that time as a trainer, I was introduced to a lot of people in a lot of companies. Needless to say that I've had to put up with a lot of noise from people unhappy to have to learn a new software. It's understandable. The one thing that really hit the spot though were all these false claims about Eplan being slow, bloated, expensive, hard to comission, you name it.
What I've noticed is that the vast majority of those resisting change was the AutoCAD crowd. This is where the bad taste in my mouth came from. Eplan really revolves around 2 key concepts (to resume very roughly). The symbol libraries, and the parts libraries. Out of the box, Eplan comes with a full set of NFPA and IEC symbols, so you really have nothing to do to start editing the schematic other than learn the interface, which is very customizable.
I used to say during training that whatever you can do in AutoCAD schematic wise, you can do in Eplan just as easily. And to top it all, you get Autoconnect wires between symbols.
No more trim/extend to move things around. The real power comes from the 'intelligence' behind the symbols once they have been inserted into the schematic. They become objects to which properties can be attached. I say 'can' because you don't really have to fill them if you don't need to. But it's always nice to assign a Device Tag, Function Text and other common properties. By the way, these properties are very easily accessed through dialogs. Even assigning parts to those objects is a piece of cake.
Of course, the parts database needs to be filled, but you'd still have to do that with any other system, wouldn't you? On the other hand, as I alreay mentionned in an earlier post, if you don't want to bother using the built-in Eplan parts management interface, you can easily configure Eplan to use an existing database, such as an MRP/ERP or whatever you happen to have in-house. Now, all these properties and parts information can then be extracted to create reports such as BOM, wire lists, cable lists etc. On top of all this, you benefit from automated wire numbering, automated device numbering, online cross-reference between components (by online I mean real time) and a whole lot of other functionalities that would be too long to list here. All this out of the box, meaning that you don't have to rely on in-house tools anymore. Now, if you really need to customize more, then Eplan offers an API module that you can use to write add-ins in any.NET compliant language.
I myself have written a lot of those to automate Eplan further more, for example automated dumping of a BOM into an MRP system. No more copy/paste of endless lists. You see, the driving principle behind Eplan is that 'The schematic drives the show'. If your schematic is done right, and all proper information entered, then everything else becomes a report of some kind.
I know that for most people it's a radical switch in mentality, but I can honestly assure you that once you've understood it and embraced it, you can really start flying. It is true that the learning curve is steep, and that there's going to be a transition time where you will feel the need to go back, and by all means, there's nothing wrong in doing so. But the thing is, in just a few weeks of using the software, you can already produce fully documented projects, and not months as you suggested. I can't really answer all your concerns. I hope I have put things in their proper perspective.
Again, I can only hope you'll give it a try some day. Edited 8 Jul 2008 by Luc Morin. Thanks Luc, I may not be ready for anything fancy yet, but I'm learning my way around pretty quickly. One of the great things is that everything is so organized. It seems like I have ultimate control over my current project (over 1000 sheets), and the interface is very forgiving. It almost 'knows' what I'm trying to do sometimes. I'm really impressed.
I also wanted to point out that to this day I've still had no crashes. That's unparalelled!
I deliberately tried to create an error message by putting a terminal point on top of another terminal point. I was informed that such action is not allowed. Apparently it is watching to prevent me from doing something stupid. Whats all for now from this P8 newbie.
Sorry for the kick and the bad englisssh My boss decided to buy eplan and he let some unexperienced outside people work with it. With shitty results of course. Now I want to do some things myself but he want let me go to the eplan courses (to expensive!) So I want to learn it by myself.
So I Googled 'eplan tutorials' with bad results. If I google 'autocad electrical tutorial' well try yourself. If I had the choice i would go for AC electrical but I dont, so if somebody can offer me some help on this, I would gladly accept I also can't find a decent forum for eplan. Hi Kolonel, Take a look on the EPLAN site, and look for the Getting Started guide. If you have trouble finding it, just give them a call.
I've always found the people there to be very nice and responsive. The guide is translated from German, so it has some minor issues. They may have fixed that by now. My copy of the guide is a few months old. I was scheduled for official EPLAN training, but my company put a freeze on business travel for now.
I've taught myself how to use it well enough by using the Getting Started guide. But, I've also been asking questions of tech support at EPLAN when I run into trouble. Good luck and have fun! Thank you The getting started guide comes with the software so I've already been there. If you want to go deeper- like changing plotframes or symbols- One can search in the help files but this takes al lot of time and you're not sure you're doing the right thing. ( I already had to redraw some stuff for working wrong) The online help is also quite expensive so my boss want pay for this either and learning it all trough the phone: I think it would be better, eplan includes some education stuff in the price (books or a 3-day course) Like for autocad of which you can find loads of books in the local library I think it would be a good marketing strategy to make such available. But probably the target group is to small?
If only someone would setup a decent forum. Kolonel, Quite frankly, if your employer is not willing to pay the very small training fee to get you up to speed, then you are right, you should use AutoCAD Electrical (and live with its limitations). We get to see that over and over. Companies, who will benefit from using a great tool, are reluctant to invest time and money to get there.
Electrical Symbol Library
Why do you think AutoCAD is so popular? Because it was easy to pirate, and I'll say it again, a LOT of companies use those pirate versions. I think AutoCAD will see a decline in popularity as the new versions seem to implement a better protection scheme. Funny isn't it that AutoCAD will finally do what Eplan has been doing all along. As for AutoCAD Electrical, it is not such a bad product, but it has its limitations, and quite frankly, for the difference in pricing between AE and Eplan, one would be ill advised not to go with Eplan. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the number of people/companies who think that they'll be able to pick up a highly specialized tool like Eplan, and teach themselves. When is the last time that you heard of a radiology technician who had to train himself on how to use an MRI scanner?
Electrical Symbol Library Pdf
Would you accept passing the MRI test if it was handled by such a person? Why do people think it's different with software? As for a better forum for Eplan discussions, there is one if you have the maintenance agreement. Ask you local Eplan representative about it. Hi We already have an P8 license zo autocad is not an option. As my boss won't pay for education, he also has stopped the maintenance module so I can't go to the official forum.
The last time I checked this forum, it was very lame anyway I've been using eplan P8 for a few weeks now and it seems to work out well. Went trough the beginner guide and found some stuff on my own. But this takes a lot of time and I will never become the time reducing tips and tricks. Free tutorials are unfindable. Can I ask you guys occasionally some practical questions about eplan use? I could do this trough this forum (moderator?) or private (click my name) Thank you in advance Edited 22 Apr 2009 by kolonelvonklink.