CAD Program for Electrical Schematics

[Duke 48]

I am looking for a very low cost CAD program to use to draw out the electrical circuits aboard my boat. Recommendations appreciated.
Duke

[knottybuoyz]

I use MS Visio

Microsoft Visio 2010 - Office.com

It's not cheap though ($250)

The other CAD program I've used is Google Sketchup

Google SketchUp

It has a free basic version

[s/v Jedi]

Visio rulez. I also use TurboCAD which is a CAD program for people ho don't understand CAD programs, which includes me My TurboCAD license is very unclear... I used to have the source for my Turbo Pascal compiler but think is went commercial long ago.

ciao!
Nick.

[mrm]

If you like a bit old-school interface (but very usable once one gets used to it) I would recommend Xfig - available in most Linux distributions (but, afaik, predates Linux). There are some premade electrical component libraries available for Xfig too. A more recent alternative would be Dia.

Other option would be just about any vector graphics drawing program. For example Inkscape.

[Duke 48]

I have used CadStd for a long time for my mechanical line drawings, just hoping to find something that already had the electrical symbols in a library such that I could position them on the page then draw the interconnecting lines.
Duke

[red_sky]

LibreCAD just hit 1.0. It's FOSS

[knottybuoyz]

Just stumbled across this one.

yEd - Graph Editor

Can't vouch for it one way or the other though.

[Duke 48]

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll give them a try.
Duke

[St. Elsewhere]

DesignCAD is occasionally on sale a Fry's for a near nothing cost.

[Sam Plan B]

Go with an older version of Autocad LT. Look on ebay. It will be inexpensive and easy enough to learn. There is an added advantage to you when you have learned it. (Make friends with an architect - you may get the software for free ) You can use it to draw other things - say new lexan windows. You can email your CAD file to the manufacturer where they input your data into their CDC machine. The CDC machine will cut your windows - or what ever - exactly as you drew it. I did this with new windows and stainless steel trim rings. The lexan came from Las Vegas and the trim rings came from N. Carolina. They fit together like a hand in a glove.

[hpeer]

TurboCAD is wonderful and cheap.

You can export to AutoCAD or Microstation formats.

I have used it commercially a bunch. I'm not a cad guy, but I do my sketches and give them to the cad guys to make right.

The best thing of TurboCAD is the low learning curve and ease of use.

[rev412]

For schematics I've used and like both xcircuit and gschem.

[fgd3]

There is a free "community edition" of QCAD. You can download the source code from RibbonSoft or you can find binaries for your operating system from various sources. For Windows, visit QCad binary for Windows | Free Business & Enterprise software downloads at SourceForge.net. QCAD is more than adequate for your electrical wiring diagrams.

Fabbian

[CharlieJ]

I used SmartDraw for years to develop wiring diagrams for clients. It had quirks that I was able to work with but as it became more popular for use as a presentation tool, the quirks became more difficult to accept. As my frustration level grew, I crossed over from the Dark Side and started working on a Mac. I could, and did, use SD on my emulated Windows machine on the Mac, but the quirks were bothersome and time consuming.

I then purchased TurboCad Deluxe because it was feature rich, ran on a Mac and was more AutoCad like, only to find that this program does not offer line hops. Two lines crossing, simply cross instead of one "hopping" over the other in the old school way of denoting that the two conductors that the lines represent are not electrically connected. I do understand that the more modern way of depiction is that connections between two conductors are shown as a dot. The work around would be to manually insert a filled circle at each connection. Not practical. When I spoke to TC Tech Support, they said that they would put this feature in the feature queue. So far it has not been included.

I stumbled onto the Mac based OmniGraffle Pro ($199, with a 14 day free trial), took advantage of the free trial, and found it far better than SmartDraw in my application but not as feature rich as TurboCad. It does provide line hops. There are a few quirks dealing with snapping and attachment points but, overall, I am satisfied. No affiliation, just a happy customer. OmniGraffle for Mac - Products - The Omni Group

Charlie

[s/v Jedi]

Here's a quick & dirty schematic done in TurboCAD; I would not like to see "hops" where wires cross...

Before spending money, one should try out Visio which is the norm for professionals around where I come from

(p.s. yes I show output Neutral grounded here but always tell people not to do that )

ciao!
Nick.