Electrical Drawing Program or APP?

[Gary0747]

I am wanting to clean up and consolidate several hand drawn bits of paper for my Avionics and Electrical systems.   Is there a simple to use program or APP out there that is inexpensive and does not require a bunch of training?

[Hank]

AutoCAD LT is fairly inexpensive and straighforward, but nothing will cost less than Google Sketchup . . . . It's also fairly easy, but is made for 3D stuff rather than 2D drawings.

If your handwriting is legible, I can be bribed. As a mechanical engineer, I came through school the hard way with triangles, dividers and a pile of pencils but made the leap to CAD in the 90s and was dragged kicking and screaming over to AutoCAD v. 2.0 . . . . Now it's much simpler

Edited September 5, 2020 by Hank

[kortopates]

Are you an EAA member? Free Solidworks CAD program if you are.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RLCarter]

3 hours ago, Hank said:

As a mechanical engineer, I came through school the hard way with triangles, dividers and a pile of pencils but made the leap to CAD in the 90s and was dragged kicking and screaming over to AutoCAD v. 2.0 . . . . Now it's much simpler

I installed AutoCad on my computer some 20 years ago, then spent a week trying to draw a straight line with it

[RLCarter]

On September 3, 2020 at 10:36 AM, Gary0747 said:

I am wanting to clean up and consolidate several hand drawn bits of paper for my Avionics and Electrical systems.   Is there a simple to use program or APP out there that is inexpensive and does not require a bunch of training?

If Hank doesn't want to mess with it I'll take a look at it, I've done several for local RV's being built. Most were done from photos of the drawings, even got handed a torn cardboard box flap with a schematic on it

[chriscalandro]

Eagle?

[Hank]

On 9/3/2020 at 10:36 AM, Gary0747 said:

I am wanting to clean up and consolidate several hand drawn bits of paper for my Avionics and Electrical systems.   Is there a simple to use program or APP out there that is inexpensive and does not require a bunch of training?

Any progress? 

[Gary0747]

No progress Yet.  I was hoping to find something simple.  

[Jerry 5TJ]

How about trying the Express PCB schematic tool — Express PCB

Their “classic” package includes a very simple schematic drafting CAD tool.  Free.  Runs under Windows.  

About as simple to use as a Ticonderoga #2.  

[bob865]

For basic stuff Visio works pretty well....if you have a copy.  I have a copy on my work PC and after a little trial and error it's pretty easy to use.

[EricJ]

38 minutes ago, bob865 said:

For basic stuff Visio works pretty well....if you have a copy.  I have a copy on my work PC and after a little trial and error it's pretty easy to use.

I was just gonna say, rather than climb the learning curve of a CAD program like Eagleware or ExpresPCB, something general and simple like Visio does an excellent job for connecting blocks in diagrams and labelling things.    If you don't need it to generate a netlist or a BoM or something, there's no need to use a CAD program.

Even as an EE for several decades, I much prefer Visio for this sort of thing, i.e., block diagrams, etc.   If you don't have it as part of an MS Office installation I think there's a way to d/l it for free, but I'm not positive about that.