Electrical CAD program

[colind3782]

Further to my last post, after years of procrastination, I'm starting to get the urge to sort out the rats nest in the battery compartment. From what I've managed to trace so far I have four batteries. The starboard aft battery is the starter battery, the two port batteries seem to exist solely as a backup to the starter and the forward starboard battery seems to be only there as a domestic battery. It doesn't help that most of the cables are, randomly, black or grey, with a couple of blue cables thrown in for good measure! I have sketched out a drawing but it's the sort of thing you would put on your fridge if you had grandchildren with no artistic talent!

In previous threads I have seen recommendations for a electrical drawing program for idiots that may be useful to get a better visual image of what's going on. Any pointers? I'm trying to work out how to tidy it up and where to put a VSR.

 

[Yosilas]

EasyEDA run it in a browser on on a pc.

It can be used for other things than circuit boards, and adding new custom components is not arduous.

 

[HissyFit]

I'd suggest that any graphics program would do the trick, even the ones that come free with Windows/iOS. So long as you can cut and paste duplicate entities, like multiple batteries in a bank, and snap to grids to give a well ordered layout then it should be a pretty pain free operation.

 

[dolabriform]

I was thinking of offering this as a service, ie send me your back of the envelope sketch and I'll draw it out for you.

Do you folks think this would be a useful service? If so, what do you think it would be worth?

 

[ean_p]

I was thinking of offering this as a service, ie send me your back of the envelope sketch and I'll draw it out for you.

Do you folks think this would be a useful service? If so, what do you think it would be worth?

I thought much the same being able to do it as a retirement occupation but when you look into it you can get Cad/Cam draughters on By The Hour etc for peanuts and that's before you start to think about the accuracy of the back of the envelope sketch and your / their interpretation of it! Its really, on a one off basis, not worth using the draughting process and the owner may as well just use coloured pens on a sheet of A4 / A3 if he's intent on having a reasonable drawing! Unless you intend to offer a design function too but then that's a totally different ball game!

 

[HissyFit]

PaulRainbow of this parish does nice layouts of circuits he's tying to explain. I believe he uses one of the packages within Microsoft Office.

 

[PaulRainbow]

PaulRainbow of this parish does nice layouts of circuits he's tying to explain. I believe he uses one of the packages within Microsoft Office.

I use Microsoft Visio, it's not cheap though (unless you can find a downloadable version)

For the OP, here's an example of where the VSR goes:

For some N2K layouts i've started using Maretron N2K builder, which is free: Maretron | N2KBuilder

 

[superheat6k]

If you use a Mac then Electric Design is great. Costs ~ £20, but for me is great.

i also use it for designing fridge system schematics.

 

[colind3782]

I use Microsoft Visio, it's not cheap though (unless you can find a downloadable version)

For the OP, here's an example of where the VSR goes:

For some N2K layouts i've started using Maretron N2K builder, which is free: Maretron | N2KBuilder

Thanks again Paul. I've found and downloaded Edrawmax which is marketed as an alternative to Visio and it's free so I'll see how I get on with it!

Your VSR example seems to be missing?

 

[Ceirwan]

I also use Visio.

It's pretty intuitive & works well for this kind of thing. You can normally pick it up from license key resellers for around £15, fully legal. (apparently)

 

[Rafal]

I recommend draw.io Is free and you can have elements permanently connected when you move them around. There is web and desktop version.

 

[PaulRainbow]

Thanks again Paul. I've found and downloaded Edrawmax which is marketed as an alternative to Visio and it's free so I'll see how I get on with it!

Your VSR example seems to be missing?

It's showing for me Colin.

 

[colind3782]

It's showing for me Colin.

It's probably me then, I'm just seeing blank space.

I'm in Spain on the boat at the moment so it's probably held up in customs!

 

[Hoolie]

I'm in France on the boat and I can't see it either! I blame ******

 

[Neeves]

And it has not arrived yet in Oz, but we are a long way away.

But there has been a lot of skepticism of the lack of substance in the joint trade deal

Jonathan

 

[colind3782]

I'm in France on the boat and I can't see it either! I blame ******

So do I! For just about everything!

 

[PaulRainbow]

It's probably me then, I'm just seeing blank space.

I'm in Spain on the boat at the moment so it's probably held up in customs!

I think you should be able to see it now, i made some changes to the firewall on my website.

 

[colind3782]

I think you should be able to see it now, i made some changes to the firewall on my website.

Still not there and, when I click on your website link, it comes up as access denied

 

[PaulRainbow]

Still not there and, when I click on your website link, it comes up as access denied

Grrrr, there was a firewall rule blocking some overseas users, fixed now.

 

[colind3782]

Grrrr, there was a firewall rule blocking some overseas users, fixed now.

Thanks Paul, got it now