Looking for Best Standard Practices

Hello All,

I work for a start-up company as Electrical Design/Drafter. It's my responsibility to set-up AutoCAD standards, blocks & templates for electrical drawings (panel fronts, schematics, wiring diagrams). I am the only designer here for now, until we hire more people in the future, so what I set up now, will be the company final standard.



Before I came on board, the engineer had done all of his drawings. He wasn't too knowledge in CAD standards, but did the best he could. His drawings were accurate, but not set to any types of standards.



His drawings were all model space (I prefer paper space, multiple layout tabs).

Title blocks are 34" x 52". (I prefer 24" x 36")

Therefore, with his "wider" border, he made his symbols much larger. All text is minimum 3/16" (I am used to 1/8"). He used SHX fonts, while I wanted to explore TTF fonts.



While I questioned myself using these symbols he had already created, I built all of our blocks and standards based off of his prior drawings. I felt it would be easier to use what he had started, as opposed to starting completely over.

I am now having second thoughts.



My questions are:

1) Do I continue building the blocks, standards, etc. based off the large library I have already created from his drawings? Even though I find some things as non-standard?

2) What is considered "good standards" when it comes to electrical, schematics, wiring diagram types of drawings?

3) What are most common preferences when it comes to title block sizes, fonts, text heights, model space, paper space?



Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nancyice763602

Hello All,
My questions are:

1) Do I continue building the blocks, standards, etc. based off the large library I have already created from his drawings? Even though I find some things as non-standard?

2) What is considered "good standards" when it comes to electrical, schematics, wiring diagram types of drawings?

3) What are most common preferences when it comes to title block sizes, fonts, text heights, model space, paper space?



Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

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Some general info,
I guess it depends on what this company wants for standards, you should go with that.
1) Yes you should create the blocks you need to use on a daily basis (don't forget to create them 1:1 on layer zero = good block creating practices)
2) I don't know much about electrical drafting standards, but proper layers and good cad drafting practices are a must.
3) I tend to use Ansi-D (22x34 or Arch-D (24x36), Geometry in MS, Layouts with xreffed TB in PS, etc. Romans.shx for common text and dims, 3/32" min. text height, (but 1/8" common in Government standards)

You could look into National Cad Standards (if you're in the United States) that is a real good place to start, most Government standards are based off that, so if you plan on doing work for them, you're almost there anyway.

You'll need to develop Layer standards, Text, Mleader, Dimension standards, Standard title blocks, Plot Styles,
You'll need to Decide if you want to use Annotative Scaling? Sheet Set Manager?

But like I mentioned, it depends on what your company wants to put out for a product.
Also search here in AUGI on this topic, lots of info here.

Ted, thanks for responding. I will definitely consider all your comments!

Schematics are traditionally all in model space; if you start to mix-and-match that could cause a problem. You should also consider what your primary clients require as deliverables - if they want everything as separate files and in model space it doesn't make much sense to set things up otherwise.