Autodesk AutoCAD Electrical 2012

AutoCAD Electrical software, the AutoCAD software for electrical control design, helps to automate design tasks. AutoCAD Electrical includes all the functionality of AutoCAD, plus a complete set of features designed specifically for electrical controls designers. Comprehensive symbol libraries and tools for automating electrical engineering tasks can help you increase drafting productivity and gain a competitive edge.

First let’s cover a few things we’ll call “Productivity Enhancements”:

• Library Standards – AutoCAD 2012 make it easier than ever to create standards-based designs that comply with industry requirements. Compete globally with support for international standards and comprehensive libraries of manufacturer content and symbols.  AutoCAD Electrical 2012 now includes an enhanced library of standards and two new sets of library symbols to comply with both IEEE 315/315A  and IEC-60617 standards.

• Streamlined Schematic Component Updating - The specialized drafting features in AutoCAD Electrical software can save hours of design time. Users of AutoCAD Electrical 2012 can now copy information from a one-line component to a schematic component, rather than being forced to build the schematic independantly, which helps streamline the process of editing component information. The user will be promted to update descriptions, catalog values, location/installation codes, and ratings individually or all at once.

• Intelligent Component Updating - AutoCAD Electrical 2012 makes it easier to assign a catalog value to a component. The component updates with related values from the catalog database. If these related values change later in the database, you can update the components with the new values. This capability updates many values such as Schematic parent pin list, Weblink, Textvalue, and Terminal properties, helping you save time and increase the accuracy of your designs.

• Duplicate Tag Check for Panels – Now with 2012 inserting a panel footprint from the Component Insert/Edit dialog box and enter a tag value the program checks for duplication helping to prevent errors.

Our next category falls nicely into the description of “Smarter Drawings”- New features and functionality designed to make it even easier to save time, reduce errors, and create innovative electrical control designs:

• Multiple Balloon Placement – When a component has multiple catalog values, you can now select the direction for placement of multiple balloons. Options include up, down, left, right, and angle of last segment.

• Export and Import Drawing Settings – Drawing setting properties are now exportable giving you the ability to import the values into other drawings and project files. Export Drawing Settings properties modify the values in the output file and import the values back to the drawings and project file. These properties are exported:

          o Section
          o Sub-section
          o Sheet (%S)
          o Drawing (%D)
          o IEC Project (%P)
          o IEC Installation (%I)
          o IEC Location (%L)
          o Drawing Descriptions 1-3

• AutoCAD WS – The AutoCAD WS plug-in for AutoCAD Electrical software allows you to access AutoCAD WS directly inside your AutoCAD software. AutoCAD WS is a new web and mobile application that can enable you to stay connected to your DWG™ files on any platform—from your desktop, from the web, or from your iPhone and iPad mobile devices.

The AutoCAD WS plug-in allows you to upload and work with online DWG files directly from AutoCAD 2012 software to view, edit, and share your DWG files seamlessly on web browsers or mobile devices.

And finally let’s visit the new enhancements we’ll call “Streamlined Tools”- Additions to the specialized tools to make you even more productive:

Terminal Strip Editor
Create a terminal strip with the Terminal Strip Editor even if there are no terminals present in the active project.When creating a Terminal Strip table the table styles from the active drawing are available for selection.

Copy Circuit enhancements
In the "Copy Circuit Options" dialog box there are now options for updating terminal numbers. Choose from the following options for terminals within the copied circuit:

• Keep terminal numbers
• Blank terminal numbers
• Increment terminal numbers

System Requirements:

For 32-bit AutoCAD Electrical 2012
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home and Professional (SP3 or later), or Microsoft® Windows Vista® (SP2 or later) Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium edition, or Microsoft® Windows® 7 Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium edition (compare Windows versions)
Intel® Pentium® or AMD Athlon® dual-core processor, 1.6 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology for Windows XP, or Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon dual-core, 3.0 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology for Windows Vista or Windows 7
2 GB RAM
6 GB free disk space for installation (7 GB for a clean machine with no .NET installed)
1,280 x 1,024 display with True Color
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or later
Microsoft Mouse-compliant pointing device

For 64-bit AutoCAD Electrical 2012
Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (SP2 and later), or Microsoft Windows Vista (SP2 or later) Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium edition, or Microsoft® Windows® 7 Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium edition (compare Windows versions)
AMD Athlon 64 with SSE2 technology, AMD Opteron® with SSE2 technology, Intel® Xeon® with Intel EM64T support with SSE2 technology, or Intel Pentium 4 with Intel EM64T support with SSE2 technology
2 GB RAM
6 GB free disk space for installation (7 GB for a clean system with no .NET installed)
1,280 x 1,024 display with True Color
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 or later
Microsoft Mouse-compliant point device

Additional Requirements for 3D Modeling
Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor, 3 GHz or greater, or Intel or AMD dual-core processor, 2 GHz or greater
2 GB RAM or greater
2 GB free hard disk available, not including installation
1,280 x 1,024 32-bit color video display adapter (True Color)
128 MB or greater, Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater, Direct3D®-capable workstation-class graphics card