Should I Stay or Should I Go – To the Cloud?

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When it comes to updating software or choosing a solution, I kind of see it like the popular 80’s song by the Clash, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” At Dassault Systèmes we don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach so we offer a variety of solutions, including desktop and cloud-based, to help you, our customers, meet your design and engineering needs.

Today, I want to talk about a couple of our electrical roles, including SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic and the Electrical Schematic Designer, both great tools, but which is right for you?

I think you’ll find value in both. The desktop solution SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic is approaching its 10-year anniversary this year, while Electrical Schematic Designer, a solution that is installed locally and is integrated with the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform, is a fairly new solution.

Since most of you are most likely more familiar with SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic, I’ll focus more on Electrical Schematic Designer and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform capabilities that can help you and your team produce electrical designs faster and more efficiently.

Electrical Schematic Designer is a cloud-connected version of SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic Professional desktop and includes data management and collaboration capabilities on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, in one easy-to-use interface. Electrical Schematic Designer enables you to create electrical schematics, control panel drawings, reports, and other electrical design documentation, and then safely store and share your data on the platform for your entire team.

Since it is integrated with the cloud, Electrical Schematic Designer is faster to get up and running than the desktop version. The installation process is also faster as there are no separate SQL databases to install, no servers to manage, and no software updates to plan as updates are automatically provided throughout the year. There are also online materials to help users get started quickly.

Here are some of the capabilities and benefits of Electrical Schematic Designer that really stand out and will help you with your day-to-day electrical product development.

3DSwym User Community – easily search for and share content, ask questions, and connect with your peers.

3DSwym communities enable you to connect and engage with your team and other users and members of the SOLIDWORKS team. It’s also a great resource to stay up to date on upcoming events and news.

In 3DSwym you can post images, videos, 3D models, surveys, questions and more. Easily find your content or related content by using the Search feature.

New learning materials are frequently added to 3DSwym as well, plus assistance comes from community members and SOLIDWORKS employees alike. It is ultimately the go to place to ask and answer questions about Dassault Systèmes solutions, including 3DEXPERIENCE Works roles, such as Electrical Schematic Designer, to exchange knowledge, and share tips and tricks you’ve discovered.

3DSwym is a great place to stay up to date on SOLIDWORKS news, ask questions, share your insights and network with other users.

 

Built-in Lifecycle Management – easily store and find content in a secure location.

Since Electrical Schematic Designer is integrated with the cloud you can access your data from anywhere. Your data is always available to your team members whether they are located across the office or across the world. It is safely stored in one convenient location on 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

Manage the lifecycle of any type of content including electrical projects, 3D design files, simulation models and documentation across disciplines and CAD applications.

Streamline data management with built-in revision control and branching. Designs can be locked while changes are being made by another user, and you can see when they are in use and by whom. Access all previously saved revisions when you need them. With the search capability, it’s easy to find design data and related project resources.

Store all your design data on the centralized, secure 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Access your data from anywhere.

 

 

Collaboration –quickly share and discuss designs and access additional roles.

Share, annotate, discuss, and collaborate in real time with other 3DEXPERIENCE platform users to help get products to market faster.

Adding additional users is easy from the platform as you purchase additional licenses. You can simply enable others from the Administration page.

Work seamlessly with existing data, such as designs from SOLIDWORKS, 3D Creator and other 3DEXPERIENCE Works roles. See the SOLIDWORKS Cloud Offer to get your hands on powerful browser-based roles for a great deal.

Generate reports for the manufacturing team, such as bill of materials (BOM), drawing lists, and wire label reports.

 

Of course, in addition to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform perks, Electrical Schematic Designer is purpose built to meet your electrical system design needs, and includes the following capabilities:

  •         Electro-technical schematic creation– Produce complete documentation of complex electrical systems for machines and industrial equipment using single-line and multi-line schematic representations.
  •         Report Generation– Generate reports automatically based on real-time design database queries and create custom reports via integrated custom report creation tools.
  •         2D control (cabinet) panel drawings– Generate 2D panel representations from an electrical schematic with 2D outlines of electrical components.
  •         Electrical component and symbol library– Access an extensive library of industry-standard schematic symbols, combined with a database of manufacturer parts, to provide an easily customizable and adaptable parts base through easy-to-use import tools.
  •         Design Rule Checks (DRCs)– DRCs scan the project for specific errors and then provide a report on what those errors are and where they appear in the project for a variety of different potential issues.
  •         Design reuse– Reuse circuit design elements, such as circuit macros, along with non-Electrical Schematic Designer content, through easy-to-use import wizards.
  •         Use of SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic data– Open, edit and continue to develop an existing SOLIDWORKS Electrical project, originally created on desktop, then store to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

In conclusion, I go back to the beginning thought, “should I stay or should I go?” If you’re content with desktop, you can stay with SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic, but when you’re ready to go, you can level up to the cloud and increase the productivity of your whole team with Electrical Schematic Designer.

For a short demo check out this page: https://my.3dexperience.3ds.com/welcome/compass-world/rootroles/electrical-schematic-designer. To learn more, sign up for a session at the upcoming 3DEXPERIENCE World annual user event taking place in Nashville Tennessee February 12-15, 2023. You can now register here.

See my last couple of blogs below to learn more.

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2022/02/introducing-electrical-schematic-designer.html

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2022/05/access-your-electrical-content-more-easily-and-faster-with-electrical-schematic-designer-on-the-3dexperience-platform.html

https://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2022/08/its-electric-whats-new-for-electrical-design-in-the-cloud.html

Eric Leafquist

Eric Leafquist

Eric Leafquist is a Senior Product Manager at SOLIDWORKS involved with electrical and routed systems, along with other areas of the product. Prior to joining SOLIDWORKS, he held various positions in electro-mechanical product design and engineering in the chemical process industry. In his free time, he enjoys cycling on his Trek road bike (designed with SOLIDWORKS) for cancer research fundraising events.