Luc Morin

Any users of Eplan P8 ?

43 posts in this topic

Thank you very much 1- I like to work with "page character column" notification (don't know the right english word ) When I move or copy parts, these numbers are no longer correct. How can I renumber parts; groups; whole projects? 2-about the same with terminal blocks. I copy one page to another and the terminal numbers remain. How can I easely renumber a group of them? 3- and the same problem with copied PLC cards. How can I easily re-address them? 4-Opto-couplers are often used. I only have a single symbol of it so I always have to use many pagepointers(right word?) How do you deal with this. wouldn't it be better to make 2 symbols of it, like relays are used with coil and contact and crossreferenced. How to make such things? 5-Here in Belgium the common of a control powersupply(24VDC) has t0 be grounded. Now I like to have earth wires to be colored green, the GND wires of the 24VDC to be colored dark-blue and the Neutral wire of the 3x400VAC+N to be colored light blue. But they have the same potential. Can I give these different potential labels (and colors) while they still are connected to each other? That will do for now thanks

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Sorry for the delay. I still don't have email notification. I think advanced questions like yours should be directed here: http://forum.eplan.info/en/ They are much more experienced than I am. I still use mrplc, but not for eplan stuff. Cheers

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HI Luc Hey I was wondering if Eplan has a try out version? I have used autocad in past. I cant say much about it, I only used it for like a year.

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They have a 30 day trial CD with demo videos as well. It's here: http://www.eplanusa.com/products/eplan-ele...free-trial.html Enjoy!

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@ Designer71 Thank you but one's got to have a softwaremaintenance contract to be able to paticipate in this forum wich my boss won't pay for anymore. I feel like sitting in a Lambourghini without fuel. I found another eplan forum but its in German language wich is pretty hard for my but I'll try it.

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Thanks buddy, I'll check it out. I watched couple of video on it, it looks good.

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You're right. It's a Lambourghini all right. I'm still learning to use it, but quickly see it's advantages. I'll try to help as best as I can. But you might need to give one question at a time. You might be able to convince your boss to purchase the EPLAN Electric P8 Reference Handbook. (ISBN: 978-1-56990-432-9) It's worth a try! Good luck.

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Hi Guys, I bought ePlan Pro and the maint support because I was sick of struggling with ACad. Trouble is I am still struggling with ePlan. It is a pitty there is not REAL support site for a product that does appear to be the top of its class. Maybe if enough of us users band together we could prise some better documentation out of Rittal. I have been truing to buy the reference book mentioned but so far no luck.

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Give them a call. They sell that book, I believe. You can find the phone number on the EPlan website, I think. Let me know if you need a direct link. Also, I would bring questions to them over the phone, or post them here. Youre not totally alone! :P Good luck!

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I know this might be late in the game, but after reading this post i could not help myself and stick in my 2 centavos. As Luc mentioned, EPLAN has been around for 20 some odd years now and they have been very active at making this software dedicated to the Electrical side of our work, AutoCAD has made a "add-on" to it's mechanical tool to get the same sort of feel. YES it is true that we all have been rammed AutoCAD since school, (only because AutoCAD was so cheap and gave free licenses or the schools had pirated copies), so we had no REAL choice but to use it, because if we had a tool like EPLAN at our disposal we all would have made the switch long ago. But when you want to drive around in a Austin Martin DBS, then get ready to pay the price for all it wonders... trust me the feeling in your pants is not the same after you drove one same goes for EPLAN. If you are not lazy or scared of learning something new to help you become a better, faster more productive at your work than EPLAN might give you that edge you need, other than that... continue using other tools that will make you schematics nice and cute and stick to manual work to make the customer pay for long hours of non-logical project that have way too many issues with reports and cross-references etc. Is this a ACAD diss?...not really ACAD is and always was a great tool for technical drawings, just not for electrical drawings and that is pretty much what Mr. Luc was saying. I work alot with EPLAN and been using it for 3 years now, was trained 4 hours and the rest on my own. similar to Photoshop, i could pay for courses and spend numerous hours infront on my PC to learn it and still not skim the surface of all the utilities found in it. like any other software out ther including ACAD. Is EPLAN better or not? I think it becomes personal but if you weight them down, you would be impressed by some of the things EPLAN lets you do out of the box. There is more and more media about EPLAN, i have found more and more info on youtube and on the Canadian site as well as the US site (even if the site is not made using Flash and ASP to give those that wow effect...for those who make desisions based on looks and not performance... ). Personally if a software came out that made a better more productive project i would not spend much time whinning about the if and ends about it, cuz with all this free-trade stuff going on, the mexicans and chinese are going to get all the P.O.'s and we are going to have to look at other trades to make ends meet. (a few places in Ontario already lots a few bids to Brasil because they had EPLAN and where faster and alot more error free that with ACAD...ouch....)

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I have just recently attended a free ePlan "hands-on" workshop, and so far I like what I see. The workshop was only 4 hours long so you only get the basics. However, at the workshop they gave each participant a free copy of the EPLAN Electric P8 Reference Handbook. (ISBN: 978-1-56990-432-9). The handbook appears to be quite thorough. If you contact your local ePLAN representative, perhaps they can let you know when the next workshop is planned for your area. If there is not a workshop planned in the near future for your area, perhaps they would be willing to part with a free copy of the handbook for you- it's worth a try.

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I have a copy of the book as well, and have had the pleasure of actually using ePlan P8 on a few projects. I was also fortunate enough to recieve a week of training from ePlan. As an electrical design platform, I'm convinced it's superior to AutoCAD (in any of it's forms). There is some difficulty in gaining acceptace for the product because of the the cost and fears that it would be difficult to learn and use. That's unfortunate. Having the handbook is nice, but you'd be cheating yourself if you don't get to see the product in action. I'd recommend anyone reading this to attend a workshop or request one from ePlan in their area.

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Hello Guys! I just start to learn and to use Eplan. Before i use AutoCad 2011 Electrical, but somehow i just want to learn this softwer too, lots of my colege working in this program. I just installed Eplan P8 Well my first problem is when i going to Wizard Projects and doing the stup i get the first error message (basically) i want to do a simple schematic nothing complicated at the begining, just to se how its work. Chosing the Frames, putting the components, creating new components etc... Ok my problem is this when i creating the project with WizzardProj i get this message: The project is incompete. The symbol library 'SPECIAL' could not be found. Wher can i say to program how to find that or how to set the library directorium?... i don't understand... Little bit confusing to me. And i can't find any symbol in symbol list.... Best regards Arpad Edited by arpix
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After 6 years of using AutoCAD electrical exclusively for schematic drawing, I can honestly say I prefer using Vanilla AutoCAD. The problem with Electrical (and by extension all parametric schematic builders) is that you are forced as an engineer/designer to do things Autodesk's way. The more you do something "manual" or out-of-the-ordinary in the print, the more likely it will screw up some parametric component later on. I've found myself correcting wire numbers and component labels just as often with Acade than with regular Acad. I'm sure Eplan is better (since it's not a shoddy collection of lisp routines scotch-taped on top of an existing product), but it's still a hard sell to a place that's already been using AutoCAD for years. When you try to sell them a parametric schematic builder, you are essentially asking them to spend loads of time implementing their drawing standards into it, as opposed to copying the prints from the last job and modifying them.
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Use it for 2 y now. It would be better if there's a forum about it. So we can change all the knowledge. Eplan training cost a lot!!!

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ok, Nine years later....doesn't seem to be much activity, but I'm in desperate need of GM eplan help.....

 

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Well ask away, maybe someone can help?

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Hi Luc,

I have just started with Eplan P8. I am trying to import Eplan 5 file to Eplan 8 but facing problem. Import not done successfully due to "Error copying database or Error creating database".  thanks

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