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Electrical drawings

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2021 11:59 pm
by Rich
With various changes that have been made to my DA40 I'd like to produce relevant updated wiring diagrams. I'm having a devil of a time finding software suitable for this purpose. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Re: Electrical drawings

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:37 am
by Steve
Rich:

I have wanted to do this myself, every time I modify the avionics in my airplane. The complexity of the task has always dissuaded me...

It would be best if there were some way to scan and import the Diamond-supplied wiring diagrams to use as a starting point. I took the first step toward this by removing all of the non-applicable diagrams (e.g. the Garmin diagrams - I have a Bendix/King stack) from my paper AMM. I found a schematic/electrical drawing software package:

https://www.edrawsoft.com/electrical.ht ... 20software

that looks pretty good for simple circuit diagrams, but less useful in our application, because I don't think you can import diagrams. Plus, it seems optimized for component-level drawings, rather than the mostly interconnect-level diagrams we have. I think you could probably do an OK job with it on the Charging System or Starting System, not so easy for the Autopilot...

If you do find a workable solution, I'm sure that the group would be quite interested.

Steve

Re: Electrical drawings

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:48 am
by Rich
Steve, I did what you did, collecting only the relevant drawings into a separate document for my own use. In a couple of cases it wasn't so clear which to use.

Importing the existing diagrams into specific software would be a truly magical task, as each diagram in the PDF is actually an single image. I've got no problem producing new drawings for the sections that have been impacted, such as the Surefly, LED wingtip lights, etc. This software looks like it'd do the trick and has the symbols I'd need.

Re: Electrical drawings

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 7:14 pm
by Rich
I grabbed eDraw and it will do the job. It's missing a few things and I'm still on the learning curve, but I'm good.

Thanks, Steve.

Re: Electrical drawings

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 7:24 pm
by Steve
That's great. I may try it, at least for the systems on my airplane that have had modifications. Let's see:

HID landing/taxi lights
LED wingtip lights
Clock/CO detector
406 Mhz ELT with GPS interface
Alternator
Battery Minder connection
Transponder/ADS-B out
Electronic attitude indicator (in the works)

Quite a few actually, when you list them all...

Steve

Re: Electrical drawings

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 11:27 pm
by Rich
Steve wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 7:24 pm That's great. I may try it, at least for the systems on my airplane that have had modifications. Let's see:

HID landing/taxi lights
LED wingtip lights
Clock/CO detector
406 Mhz ELT with GPS interface
Alternator
Battery Minder connection
Transponder/ADS-B out
Electronic attitude indicator (in the works)

Quite a few actually, when you list them all...

Steve
Your list intersects quite a bit with mine. I'm not sure what to do about the Aspen (in progress right now). The installation manual is really complete. I might mostly just capture screen shots of the relevant pages.