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Question:

Electrical schematic drawing program?

I need to make some electrical schematics up for some older equipment. What programs are available other than AutoCAD? Not wanting to spend the $$$ for AutoCAD at this time and I'd prefer not to use paper and pencil.Thanks.

Answer:

You might be able to go to a nearby University and use a SPICE model or perhaps they may have the auto CAD you're looking for, especially in the Engineering departments of a university. A library might have auto CAD available as well.
Search: electrical CAD several choices are available. AutoCAD is not very good for schematics.
ORCAD is mainly used for electrical drawing. you may use SPICE for this typy of drawing.
Use Powerpoint as that has a lot of symbols which can be used for technical drawings. Other than that, you can use a program called Smartdraw, which has a lot of drag and drop stuff and is a lot cheaper and easier to work with than AutoCAD
I use Autocad because it's all I have (licenced). It really sux at creating electrical schematics. Better is Orcad. Also, check out Electronics Work Bench they have a great Schematics Capture program. Yes, look for schematic capture programs I don't know why they call them capture programs. Visio has some cool libraries! As someone mentioned, Spice! Next question, where are you going to show or use these schematics? Are you going to send them to anyone? if so, you might want to go for a common drawing program. GL.

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