---------------------------------------------------------- AeroElectric-List Digest Archive --- Total Messages Posted Mon 09/10/07: 4 ---------------------------------------------------------- Today's Message Index: ---------------------- 1. 06:33 AM - Re: Schematic drawing software (Ernest Christley) 2. 07:26 AM - Re: Schematic drawing software (Robert L. Nuckolls, III) 3. 07:44 AM - Re: spade lug failure. (Robert L. Nuckolls, III) 4. 04:54 PM - Re: Schematic drawing software (Kevin Horton) ________________________________ Message 1 _____________________________________ Time: 06:33:37 AM PST US From: Ernest Christley Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Schematic drawing software Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote: > > TurboCAD 7 or higher will open, edit, print and save the drawing > files posted on my website at: > > http://www.aeroelectric.com/PPS/ > > You can get TurboCAD off ebay for under $20. Your wiring diagrams > are 90% done on the website. Just grab the pages closest to what > you want and suck them into your own wirebook. > > Bob . . . Bob, I'm really appreciative of all the work you've done with the Z drawings, and educating us all. It is all worth the cost even at twice the price, but I'd like to make a suggestion for an improvement. You publish the documents electronically in DWG format. DWG is a format that is proprietary to AutoCAD. The complete specification is not public, and AutoCAD has unilaterally made some changes to the format in the past. There are several implications to this fact. One is that you risk loosing months of work if the supporting company goes away. I've had this to happen to me. ProDesktop was a 3D package that was made available for free, and I invested months learning it and drawing my Dyke Delta. Then ProEngineer decided to pull the product. They allowed you to keep the unlocking key you had for 5 years, but my hard drive crashed and I lost the key. I didn't want to spend the thousands that the professional package cost, so that left me with a lot of digital flotsam. I doubt AutoCAD is going anywhere as a company, but they do play the game that Microsoft created of trying to use file formats to keep users on an upgrade treadmill. Another problem is that AutoCAD is only available on the Windows operating system. There's no good reason to use Windows, other than having been corralled by closed file formats. Well, let me qualify that. There's no good reason for *me* to use Windows, other than closed file formats. Fortunately, there are some very easy solutions that will make everyone happy (or at least me). The most difficult is to switch authoring programs. KiCAD (http://kicad.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) is an open source package for designing circuit boards. It has an excellent tutorial that will take you through building a simple board. After you do a couple, you will be amazed at the way the program makes laying out a circuit board so simple. Better yet, the file format is XML. It's somewhat tedious, but you can edit the circuit using nothing but a text editor. The package is designed more for laying out a circuit, vs an entire system, but I suggest anyone interested in creating circuit boards give it a try. The coolest part is laying out your circuit board, and then looking at the 3D view of it. The simplest solution is to just publish the Z drawing in DXF format. DWG is closed, and it's benefit is that it provides primitives for composing 3D drawings. DXF is a well documented, open format with published specifications. We're not doing anything in 3D, so DWG offers nothing. There are no open source DWG libraries, but nearly all the packages support DXF. There are converters that go from DWG to DXF, but they did nothing but create an unruly mess of the drawings when I tried. I even tried running the CAD programs you include on the CD using WINE, but again, all I got were trashed files. AutoCAD should be able to save as DXF, so this fix is nearly painless. Again, thank you for being an excellent educator, and I hope this suggestion is taken in a charitable light. There are good reasons to use closed source programs and proprietary formats. It just seems reasonable to me that those reasons do no apply to our exchange of information, and using them is not the best we know how to do is the result. Thank you. ________________________________ Message 2 _____________________________________ Time: 07:26:41 AM PST US From: "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Schematic drawing software At 09:31 AM 9/10/2007 -0400, you wrote: > > >Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote: >> >> TurboCAD 7 or higher will open, edit, print and save the drawing >> files posted on my website at: >> >>http://www.aeroelectric.com/PPS/ >> >> You can get TurboCAD off ebay for under $20. Your wiring diagrams >> are 90% done on the website. Just grab the pages closest to what >> you want and suck them into your own wirebook. >> >> Bob . . . > >Bob, > >I'm really appreciative of all the work you've done with the Z drawings, >and educating us all. It is all worth the cost even at twice the price, >but I'd like to make a suggestion for an improvement. > >You publish the documents electronically in DWG format. DWG is a format >that is proprietary to AutoCAD. The complete specification is not public, >and AutoCAD has unilaterally made some changes to the format in the >past. There are several implications to this fact. I have $thousands$ tied up in AutoCAD software and thousands of hours of $time$ invested in being proficient with it. All of my customers can open, edit, print, and save my drawings under either AutoCAD or the format of their choice. Public access issues aside, AutoCAD is the logical choice for me to produce drawings and illustrations to support my career. I didn't plan to publish editable drawings because of the difficulty some folks might have acquiring suitable software to manage the drawings. At the time I first published the .dwg formats, AutoCADLT was available through university bookstores for about $125. Taking an engineering student to lunch would offer a means by which folks could get into a "real" autocad environment. In the mean time, folks told me about more than one application that would open, edit, print and save the .dwg format . . . not the least of which is TurboCAD v10 which I bought off Ebay for $10. While .dwg is AutoCAD's offspring, a number of companies have seen fit to offer applications that import the format at exceedingly reasonable prices. The DXF format is problematic and I've had more problems with transporting data between applications with dxf than I've had with a third-party application where the software guys took the .dwg format head-on. The short answer is that stuff on the aeroelectric.com website is a hobby that makes a little money and I cannot justify a great shuffling of the applications I use for my business just to expand the hobby. That doesn't preclude efforts to maximize access to the .dwg work product . . . and for the moment, my best suggestion is TurboCAD v7.0 or higher. Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter! Your assertions are quite accurate but I'll suggest that for me, the TurboCAD work-around is a useful solution. Bob . . . ________________________________ Message 3 _____________________________________ Time: 07:44:46 AM PST US From: "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: spade lug failure. At 05:44 PM 8/31/2007 -0700, you wrote: > >I have been wiring my plane using some high quality (well, at least >they're expensive - $0.65 each) T&B insulated fast-on type connectors and >an Ideal crimping tool (not expensive as crimpers go - about $50). >A couple days ago I found a #22 ground wire that simply didn't conduct. >I removed it from the plane and sliced away insulation near each end to >expose the wire just before the connectors and determined which one >wasn't conducting. It looked fine. The wires were just visible sticking >out of the spade lug end and I could touch them directly with my >continuity tester, but they weren't connected to the rest of the wire. >Using a dremel tool, I removed the plastic covering and part of the >crimp. A little bit of the insulation extended into the part of the >barrel that crimps the copper wire. Apparently what happened was that the >act of crimping it cut thru the wire, but NOT thru the insulation. >The connector was held on by the insulation. That tefzel is pretty tough >stuff. > >I made a new wire and got things working, but I have to wonder if more of >my wires aren't in the same or nearly the same condition. Am I doing >something wrong here or was this probably just a 1 in a 1000 fluke? Do I >need to check the connections that seem to be working? If so, how? Good question. What you're experiencing is a demonstration of the fact that there is a menage a trois to be crafted between wires, terminals and tools that apply them. Some time ago I crafted some articles on terminal and tool performance. I'll suggest you review: http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/terminal.pdf http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/CrimpTools/crimptools.html http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/rules/review.html Your reported experience does raise some questions. I'd do a pull-test on a terminal crimped to a wire. When it fails, there should be a clean break between the loose strands and where the closed barrel turns them into a solid mass. You should not pull any strands out of the crimp. I did some tests on AMP tools putting AMP terminals on 22AWG Tefzel a few years ago and found that you could put a terminal on an UNSTRIPPED wire. When you think about the pressure (tens of thousands of PSI) it takes to bring the copper barrel into intimate contact with the copper strands, there's no way some layer of plastic is going to figure in a discontinuity. The plastic extrudes out of the joint like toothpaste. Having offered all this, I'll have to confess that what you've stated does give rise to some concerns. If one terminal was found to be insufficiently installed by ACCIDENT, what might you find if other terminals were investigated deliberately. I wish I could give you some warm fuzzies about this . . . Bob . . . ________________________________ Message 4 _____________________________________ Time: 04:54:59 PM PST US From: Kevin Horton Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Schematic drawing software On 10 Sep 2007, at 11:28, Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote: > > > At 09:31 AM 9/10/2007 -0400, you wrote: > >> >> >> Robert L. Nuckolls, III wrote: >>> >>> TurboCAD 7 or higher will open, edit, print and save the drawing >>> files posted on my website at: >>> >>> http://www.aeroelectric.com/PPS/ >>> >>> You can get TurboCAD off ebay for under $20. Your wiring diagrams >>> are 90% done on the website. Just grab the pages closest to what >>> you want and suck them into your own wirebook. >>> >>> Bob . . . >> >> Bob, >> >> I'm really appreciative of all the work you've done with the Z >> drawings, and educating us all. It is all worth the cost even at >> twice the price, but I'd like to make a suggestion for an >> improvement. >> >> You publish the documents electronically in DWG format. DWG is a >> format that is proprietary to AutoCAD. The complete specification >> is not public, and AutoCAD has unilaterally made some changes to >> the format in the past. There are several implications to this fact. > > > > > The short answer is that stuff on the aeroelectric.com website is > a hobby that makes a little money and I cannot justify a great > shuffling of the applications I use for my business just to > expand the hobby. That doesn't preclude efforts to maximize > access to the .dwg work product . . . and for the moment, my > best suggestion is TurboCAD v7.0 or higher. > > Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter! > Your assertions are quite accurate but I'll suggest that for > me, the TurboCAD work-around is a useful solution. Bob, I greatly appreciate all you have done, and continue to do to assist builders and owners. I too would hope for a way to access editable copies of your work without having to purchase a computer that can run Windows (I use OS X, on an ancient PPC machine). But, it certainly isn't appropriate for us few misfit OS X and Linux users to expect you to change your standard document flow just for us. But, I wonder if there is someone out there who has a CAD program that can read DWG format who would be willing to convert the drawings to DXF format. If someone did that, and you didn't want to take the trouble to host them on your site, I would be quite happy to host them on mine. Kevin Horton RV-8 (finishing kit) Ottawa, Canada http://www.kilohotel.com/rv8 do not archive ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Matronics Email List Services ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post A New Message aeroelectric-list@matronics.com UN/SUBSCRIBE http://www.matronics.com/subscription List FAQ http://www.matronics.com/FAQ/AeroElectric-List.htm Web Forum Interface To Lists http://forums.matronics.com Matronics List Wiki http://wiki.matronics.com Full Archive Search Engine http://www.matronics.com/search 7-Day List Browse http://www.matronics.com/browse/aeroelectric-list Browse Digests http://www.matronics.com/digest/aeroelectric-list Browse Other Lists http://www.matronics.com/browse Live Online Chat! http://www.matronics.com/chat Archive Downloading http://www.matronics.com/archives Photo Share http://www.matronics.com/photoshare Other Email Lists http://www.matronics.com/emaillists Contributions http://www.matronics.com/contribution ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These Email List Services are sponsored solely by Matronics and through the generous Contributions of its members.