Proficad – Electrical Schematics CAD | Hacker News Reader

Proficad – Electrical Schematics CAD

proficad.com

28 pointsgntech7 comments

Unfortunately, compared to cross-platform Foss and more capable alternatives such as kicad, this is a pass from me. What does this offer that others do not -- what is its USP? Does it work well under wine, something that other commercial competitors (e.g. dip trace) makes use of?

This is really more of a general purpose 2D drafting/drawing tool then a serious schematic capture tool.

Tools like KiCad, Eagle, OrCAD the schematic capture entry "the drawing part" is kinda the least interesting part of the program. While there is an art to nicely designed schematics, especially analog/RF, most schematics in industry for densely populated boards are mostly just lots of blobs with net references - as an input into the next step of board design and footprint management. Ie its more CAM than CAD.

the automation world uses lots of electrical schematics for all of the sensor and actuator wiring in control panels and out in the field. this looks like a decent tool for CAD of electrical schematics. everyone seems to either use eplan or autocad, maybe autocad electrical but the 'electrical' features are mostly ignored.

I haven't tried it (can't be bothered to boot up a Windows machine at the moment) but it looks like distribution and control panels, chassis wiring diagrams, and the like might be better supported here than in KiCAD. For PCB design, this looks like it trails KiCAD pretty badly.

Why can’t I find any information about who makes this? It seems oddly absent from the website.

This looks like this maybe the reseller.

https://www.proficad.com/purchase.aspx#faq

Digital River GmbH Scheidtweilerstr. 4 50933 Cologne Germany Tax ID Number (Germany): 217/5722/1080 VAT-ID: DE194149069

I seem to remember the authors being Czech. This is also suggested by the fact that the Czech website is different from other language variations and gives a Prague address for mail orders. Maybe the developers are in Prague and sales go through Germany.

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