Top 7 Mistakes in Electrical Design Process

Before getting to know the mistakes, every electrical engineer faces electrical design software; let's understand the electric design process. The electrical design entails planning, creating, testing and supervising the development and installation of electrical equipment. It includes power systems, lighting equipment, power distribution, fire & life safety systems, voice & data communications infrastructure & electronic components.

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Device name duplication in the initial design, broken links for cross-referencing between components and time-consuming component generation are some of the errors faced when generating an electrical diagram in low quality CAD software. Read on this article to dive into some of the common mistakes most electrical engineers eventually run into.

  1. Electrical Blocks require manual checks: Blocks usually don't update with design changes. It needs manual checks to make sure everything operates correctly. Block designs define the system structure and determine the flow of information between electrical system components. Blocks are components in a diagram that includes links inside a partnership. Hence, if the design changes and doesn't get updated, the design won't function as planned.
  2. Wire numbers are vulnerable to just one change: The electrical design structure's wire numbers are automatic until you make one small change to the drawing. Then everything goes back to manual mode. One of the significant drawbacks with wire number schemes is if you add additional pages, reorganize, or add lines, you have to change the wire numbers for everything. Electrical engineers often create different pages to anticipate possible changes.
  3. Difficult to replicate reference links or designators: Designators or reference links identify components within electrical schematics. So, it cannot be duplicated. The change in reference links will require the reference naming system to organize the project automatically.
  4. Avoiding the usage of copy/paste commands: Making the subassemblies manually with the absence of copy-paste shortcuts leads to an increase in the delivery time. It is one of the most common mistakes faced by electrical engineering companies.
  5. The absence of electronic library components results in a waste of time: Many CAD software companies provide limited resources in the libraries for designers to use. It happens under the impression that designers have highly specialized designs where standard components couldn't be replicated. The lack of library components makes most designers waste time creating crucial designs for libraries that can be customized later on.
  6. Lack of built-in symbols in the library: Many built-in libraries have limited standard symbols like IEC and ANSI. Software that consists of different characters and auto checks makes electrical engineer's job much simpler.
  7. Drag and Drop interface is complex: Creating new designs continuously can prove to be a massive pain for a designer. Having a simple interface to save previous components and utilize them for future references would be beneficial.

Conclusion

Electrical engineers and designers often come across these mistakes or errors while designing through CAD software. Most of the CAD software does not automate themselves. For a smaller project, the modification is minor and it's not a big deal. For a larger project, it requires more extensive efforts to make the finest detail function properly. So, it is necessary to choose the right CAD software as per your electrical project's need.

If you're looking for electrical design software for your next project, consider hiring an electrical system design company that uses technology trends to deliver smarter solutions.