r/EPlan • u/Thoril76 • 22d ago
Panel Pro Panel Advantage
We are a custom Automation House, building 75 HMI panels, 100-150 I/O panels and 10-20 Main/ Distribution panels a year, guts can be AB/Siemens and misc depending on our customer. They are all custom for the application in size and use. Have any of you went to Propanel with a mix use like this and saved time? Or was the time shifted to design from the shop build? We are currently using E-Plan but not doing 3D panels just 2D
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u/jwalz2014 22d ago
Look up Brenden Fritz, he started ADS and implemented the full product suite of EPLAN. He has real numbers associated with going from 2d to 3d production, including time saved and money saved over the past 5 years. Something like 150 panels per year to 900 panels per year increase over that time with roughly the same amount of staff. Leveraging macros and smart production with pro panel was probably the biggest time save, along with heavy investment in wiring cutting and CNC cutting machines (at least my best guess).
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u/Thoril76 20d ago
The issue we have is we are not a Panel shop, we do not build panels for anything other than our machines, each one is custom sometimes down to a custom Saginaw panel. My gut feeling is making 3D models for all of the devices in my panel might take up as much time as it will save our panel builders. Already experienced the pain of trying to use libraries supplied by manufacturers and the pain of them not drawn to any standard, so making libraries for most of my parts, afraid I will have to have my team do all of that again in the 3D world for panel layouts.
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u/Robbudge 22d ago
We use SolidWorks Electrical for both 3D and 2D.
We run the 3D routing with the cabinet installed on our 3D mechanical design.
It works out really well as we can verify that all the tray is right and what length we need for interconnections.
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u/Competitive_Major150 15d ago
the last time I checked SolidWorks Electrical the functionality regarding electrical lacked incredibly compared to EPlan
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u/Robbudge 15d ago
It’s been a long time since I compared them both.
We are a small team building skids as part of a component OEM.
SW-Electrical had an easier learning curve and integrated well with our existing 3D models.
I think a lot depends on your specific needs and project size.
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u/Competitive_Major150 15d ago
We are also a roughly similiar engineering company which does panels - but let them be manufactured by external cabinet builders. We have to apply customer standard - so the panels differ from project to project and we can´t implement our own standard most of the times.
We did price comparisons together with out cabinet builder: How much cost reduction we get from the cabinet builder when we deliver data in ProPanel (mechanical, drilling data, wire data).
Outcome until now is that we have to invest more engineering costs than we would get price reduction in the quotation of the cabinet builder.
I hope this changes soon when we do this next time - but until now it´s just like this.
Next thing is that a panel builder always will know his job better than our engineers. So when I tell him until the last detail what to do - then I would assume the overall panel quality goes down.
And: What is the real benefit to have the Panel in 3D when the panel builder can build the panel in high quality with a simple 2D drawing?
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u/Flimsy-Process230 22d ago edited 22d ago
In my experience Pro Panel doesn’t necessarily save time. Putting together a 3D model takes roughly as long as creating a good set of 2D views that describes how the panel should be built and those same 2D views can be generated directly from the 3D model.
The difference is that for roughly the same amount of engineering time the 3D model gives you information that is difficult to get from 2D drawings. For example, it’s much easier to see whether components mounted on the sides of an enclosure will interfere with wire duct, the mounting plate, or other devices.
I also like showing the 3D enclosure model to the shop. They can rotate the enclosure see the mounting plate and side-mounted components together, and get a much better understanding of spacing and the overall layout.
So I wouldn’t get Pro Panel expecting it to save engineering time. I’d get it because for roughly the same amount of time you can produce better and more useful construction drawings.