Wiring Diagram - what software

boristhebold · 02 March 2016, 08:27

Hi, doing a clear out of paperwork at home recently and found all my hand written notes and dodgy drawings of my wiring when I replaced lots of electronics and re-wired a lot of stuff a couple of years ago, including installing fused bus bars and negative bus bars etc etc.

Does anyone know of a decent software package that wont break the bank that could be used to create a decent wiring diagram rather than my hand drawn attempt.

jeffstevens763@g · 02 March 2016, 12:09

do you know anyone who can cad draw boristhebold [engineer?]

cheers

steco1958 · 02 March 2016, 14:05

Why not use Visio ??

Bigtalljv · 02 March 2016, 15:47

Check with Ryan Pratt on here. He posted some wiring drawings that i was envious of. he has software that was more than I was willing to pay for one drawing but maybe he can do them for you.

Jason

Bern Hanreck · 02 March 2016, 16:10

Do a search for " Electronics Workbench " or some other simple free software . There are very simple , but limited CAD packages out there . You sound as if you just need a basic drawing package that you can save and print from.

( It 18 months since I retired from University life , but Workbench was a popular freebie then . )

GuyC · 02 March 2016, 18:11

Draftsight is a free version of AutoCAD LT. It is made by the people who produce Solidworks.

Poly · 02 March 2016, 21:01

I think CAD is too complex for what Boris' needs (this is based on a guess). He simply wants to show how the spaghetti all joins up. No need to a CAD learning curve. I'd probably use yED (other such packages exist - but yed is free). It allows you to essentially draw a flow chart with coloured lines, but easily move stuff around and even have it auto tidy-up.

jeffstevens763@g · 03 March 2016, 07:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poly

I think CAD is too complex for what Boris' needs (this is based on a guess). He simply wants to show how the spaghetti all joins up. No need to a CAD learning curve. I'd probably use yED (other such packages exist - but yed is free). It allows you to essentially draw a flow chart with coloured lines, but easily move stuff around and even have it auto tidy-up.

out of interest poly yed would that work for me lots of times i like to do sketches for work but want them to be a bit more professional than the fag packet drawing.

cheers

beamishken · 03 March 2016, 07:36

Google Sketch up is free and fairly intuitive to use you can do 2 & 3d drawings easily maybe a bit ott for a wiring diagram but I did loads of drawings for a house development and found it realy useful

Poly · 03 March 2016, 13:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffstevens763@g

out of interest poly yed would that work for me lots of times i like to do sketches for work but want them to be a bit more professional than the fag packet drawing.

cheers

Depends what you are sketching! yEd is really a flow charting package - that works well for things like wiring where you want to show how things are connected rather than the physical size etc. If you want to sketch physical stuff then a CAD type package is probably better. SketchUp as ken suggests is quite quick - although if you've used any other CAD modelling package you will probably shout and sweat a lot at it! I have used SketchUp for showing physical designs/layouts. It probably has a wiring/piping plugin but I wouldn't use if for that unless I was trying to actually layout the cables and lengths etc.

jeffstevens763@g · 03 March 2016, 13:14

i was just after something simple poly just a pencil to sketch as it were suppose i'll stick with drawing & scanning.

cheers

Poly · 04 March 2016, 08:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffstevens763@g

i was just after something simple poly just a pencil to sketch as it were suppose i'll stick with drawing & scanning.

cheers

What are you sketching? If its physical things like a tool, or a cup, or a room or something then if you've never used CAD before SketchUp (SketchUp | 3D for Everyone) is probably the easiest. Depending how fancy you want to be somethings can be a PITA, but for quickly throwing something together it works well. It has a nice feature where you can style the drawing to look like a sketch too - which helps the recipient understand that it is exactly that, not a proper CAD model. I think it has about a 1 (full) day learning curve to become basically competent at it for 3d output.

jeffstevens763@g · 04 March 2016, 08:33

well downloaded sketchup lasted about 10 mins being an old fart set in my ways not for me much easier to do as i do draw freehand scan & send just thought there might be something out there that would suit us oldun's.
thanks for the reply's poly cheers

steco1958 · 04 March 2016, 09:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffstevens763@g

well downloaded sketchup lasted about 10 mins being an old fart set in my ways not for me much easier to do as i do draw freehand scan & send just thought there might be something out there that would suit us oldun's.
thanks for the reply's poly cheers

Don't bracket all us "Oldun's" some of us know how to use the PC and software we download !!

jeffstevens763@g · 04 March 2016, 09:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by steco1958

Don't bracket all us "Oldun's" some of us know how to use the PC and software we download !!

i can certainly use the software but being old school i like to get things done and although its very good it doesn't fit with what i am trying to achieve something really quick [previous comment] if you didn't read it!

cheers

HDAV · 04 March 2016, 19:45

Very few people can CAD quicker than they can sketch by hand, but cad shows its benefits further down the line you can do wiring diagrams in paint! But Visio isn't bad, if you have access to it free, draft site is basically autoCAD! But takes some learning I am trying...... At the moment v slowly.....