Software facilitates and speeds up the work of designers

A Electro Graphics, a company specialized in software for electrical and photovoltaic projects, announced new versions of its iDEA electrical CADs It is Eplus, as well as the plugin CADelet for AutoCAD. The solutions offer a range of resources to speed up and facilitate designers’ work.

The electrical CADs iDEA, Eplus and the CADelet plug-in are complete software for electrical and automation projects, which have features for creating electrical diagrams, panel layouts, lists of materials, reports and other technical documents.

Panel layout is one of the main functions of electrical CADs, which allows the quick and efficient representation of electrical panels for residential, industrial installations and photovoltaic systems.

With the Layout it is possible to arrange the components (protectors, contactors, disconnecting switches, etc.) on the board, as well as design rails and channels with length calculation.

The software also allows you to develop the layout of a panel even without an electrical diagram, starting the design from the list of materials. To do this, the function prepares the drawing based on a preliminary list defined with the Tabula software, dedicated to managing lists of materials.

In addition to the arrangement of components, the solution manages the design of the contacts on the back of the control panel door and the drilling dimensions for the components.

Once the panel port with buttons and indicators has been defined, it is possible to obtain a representation of the contacts on the back of the panel with the connection details.

According to the company, iDEA, Eplus and CADelet electrical CADs are the ideal solution for designers seeking efficiency and precision in their electrical projects.

More details

According to the company, the Board Layout function allows you to represent all the components and channels present in a board in a three-dimensional plane. The information for extracting the components is acquired from the symbols inserted in the schematic: all components that have the device acronym and the main code are processed.

Using the article code, the component data is extracted according to the manufacturer's selected model, or the global dimensions if defined, from the Articles file.

In the Layout window there are tools available to design the board:

• Selection of the frame model;
• Design and editing of channels and rails;
• Automatic arrangement of components on the rail;
• Manual arrangement of components on the rails or fixing plate.

“After having designed the layout of a panel, with all the components, instruments, rails and channels using the Layout interface functions, it is also possible to automatically draw the layout relative to the panel door. The port layout will include the representation of the underlying contacts and drilling dimensions for the components,” they explained.

Rear control panel connections

The function allows you to generate connections on the back of the control panel door. These connections refer to the main or auxiliary contacts of buttons, indicators or other accessories. A stylized representation is produced, with the aim of providing information regarding the connections of the components inserted into the panel port.

To start the function, it is necessary to select an obstruction rectangle that represents the frame door. To do this, they reported that it is necessary to use the cursor to select the extreme (opposite) angles of the frame, in order to include all components previously positioned with the frame layout function. The profiles indicated inside these rectangles guide the design of the contact blocks, according to the pins and connections.

If the selected profiles are correctly recognized in the diagram, the software will request a point to start drawing the contact blocks. At this point, you can choose a new sheet by typing N on your keyboard and pressing ENTER. To proceed with the positioning of the panel door with the contacts, it is necessary to indicate a positioning point inside the sheet.

The information reproduced in contacts or auxiliary elements is customizable. The available options are:

• Wire: for each connection the acronym of the connected wire is specified;
• Component: for each connection, the acronym and pin of the component connected to the other end of the wire are specified;
• Wire – Component: for each connection, the acronym of the connected wire is specified followed by the acronym and pin of the component connected to the other end of the wire;
• Use custom scale: it is possible to use a custom scale for the representative blocks, different from that defined by the generic layout of the board;
• Draw symbols inside the contact: activate this option to reproduce the drawing of the schematic symbol (contact, lamp) inside the contact panel.

“Such representation is not a realistic layout of the rear part of the door, but a subsequent support for easy wiring of the control panels, in addition to serving as a safe guide for its future maintenance”, reported Electro Graphics.

Drilling Plates

The Perforation plate command allows you to automatically draw the perforation dimensions of components positioned on a frame. To use it, you first need to position the equipment models in the board layout.

You will then need to use the Edit Pinout Templates command to define the holes in the components. “To do this, select the model to be edited and, in the Edit model drilling window, indicate the diameter of the hole in mm and the acronym. If the selected component does not have compatible holes, the list will be empty.”

“Finally, select the Punch Plate command and the front part of the frame you want to represent. Then, select a point on the sheet to position the design proposed by the software”, pointed out the company.

Layout of tables using the preliminary list

Electro Graphics also stated that with the electrical CADs iDEA, Eplus or CADelet the customer can also develop the layout of a board, without the electrical diagram. This is possible through a predefined preliminary bill of materials with the optional Tabula module.

To execute this command, the following steps must be performed:

1. Firstly, it is necessary to define materials, profile blocks and global dimensions of the components in the file;
2. Create a new list of materials in Tabula using the Articles file, and drag the items you want to insert into the table to the list, using the Drag & Drop command, or using the Excel Export and Import function;
3. In the CAD environment, it is necessary to save the file and create a new drawing sheet;
4. Then open the Options window, in the Utilities menu on the Frames Layout window toolbar and select the option Include profiles extracted from the Tabula file;
5. In the list of components inside the Frame Layout window, the design profiles of the components that can be inserted into the frame will be reproduced.

“This function can also be used in cases where the panel components have been removed from the electrical diagram and it is necessary to add other elements to the panel list. In this case, before designing the board layout, it is possible to edit the list of materials extracted from the scheme, integrating it with the desired elements”, they concluded.