Initial Doubts
Before using DraftLogic Electrical, I was skeptical that it would make my work easier and allow me to finish projects faster while producing more deliverables. DraftLogic's stated features and benefits about its flagship product just sounded too good to be true!
Made for Building Electrical Design
During the three days of training, I saw how DraftLogic Electrical had been designed for building electrical systems designers like me. The functions did what I needed, rather than something a programmer thought I would need but really didn't understand.
The First Project
I recently completed my first production project on DraftLogic Electrical. The project was a large, warehouse-style retail operation. The luminaire types and locations were all specified by another consultant as were the specification for all motors and panels on the job. This looked to be one of those projects where the DraftLogic Electrical folks say that their software will still benefit you but you will not be able to take advantage of all that it offers.
To perform my design work, I used the automated placement for a few rooms but mostly manually placed luminaires, receptacles, and motors using the DraftLogic Electrical tool palette and auto snap and rotate insertion tools. I selected the location of all my panels and placed them myself instead of leaving any for DraftLogic Electrical to manually place, as the other contractor had also detailed what they wanted for panels. The initial stages of the project thus went at about the same pace as a regular job would--the placement went a bit faster but there was a bit of extra drawing set up time to offset the gain in placement.
Taking Advantage of DraftLogic Electrical
Once I completed placing devices, DraftLogic Electrical started to really show its benefits. Circuiting went much faster than usual, even though I did some of the circuiting using the Circuiting Manager tool instead of letting the full circuiting automation do it all. Once the circuiting was done, I was able to produce panel schedules and the single line diagram in minutes instead of hours. The motor and luminaire schedules were seconds to generate, as was a project-specific legend of symbols. I was able to add the branch circuit wiring and produce a complete bill of materials in minutes, which I never have done before as we don't have time to draw branch circuit wiring on our regular jobs.
My Favorite Benefit
One of my usual frustrations on projects, changes from other consultants that require me to redo my work, was easily dealt with by DraftLogic Electrical. The motors specification was drastically changed four times, and the panels specification was changed twice. Normally these changes would have doubled my time on the job, at a minimum. With DraftLogic Electrical, I spent a grand total of less than a day in dealing with all the changes!
Amazed by First Project Results and Expecting Even Better on the Next Project
All told, this large, warehouse-style retail project that DraftLogic Electrical was supposed to offer its minimum performance gain on was completed in half the time it would normally have taken me. This amazed me when I considered: the number of changes that the other consultants had requested, the fact that it was my first project after being trained, the increased deliverables I generated for the project versus usual, and the fact that I was running a beta version of the product. I am absolutely confident that future projects will go even faster for me due to my level of experience increasing and DraftLogic Electrical having gone through a number of improvements since the beta version I used. I look forward to using DraftLogic Electrical and in helping others in my company to use it.
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