What is eCADlt?

A straight, although simplified, answer is that eCADlt is a menu, toolbars, macros, icons, and an extensive set of DWG blocks. These allow a user to produce electrical plans for a construction project. Most consulting engineers in the United States use AutoCAD to produce their construction documents. However, after purchasing a subscription to AutoCAD, you still don't have what you need to produce electrical plans. In order to make a set of electrical construction drawings, you need to be able to insert receptacles, switches, luminaires, disconnect switches, panels, circuiting, one-line diagrams, schedules, and more. These need to be scaled to your drawing and placed on the correct layer in order to get them to plot correctly. Purchasing AutoCAD gives you an excellent CAD program but you still need a CAD system to automate the bulk of this unless, of course, you prefer your designing environment to be like hand-to-hand combat.

eCADlt is the answer to this dilemma because it provides you with a new Electrical menu that allows you to insert your layers, set up drawings, set your scale, insert details, title blocks, schedules, and one-line riser blocks. It also adds toolbars with receptacles, switches, luminaires, panels, transformers, nurse call devices, fire alarm devices, data devices, and much more. Other toolbars have text, leaders, circuiting, and hatching tools that automatically move you to the correct layer and greatly simplify your work. Perhaps the single most amazing thing that eCADlt does is that all your symbols can be made to insert as either existing, new, or demo with a simple menu change. When you switch from new to demo or to existing, all the toolbars stay the same. Now they just have a different function and the change is instantaneous. You can literally change insertion modes in less than a second.

However, eCADlt is more than just a software installation, it's also a service. When you order eCADlt for your firm, we will come to your place of business, install the CAD system onto your computers, customize it for your use, then train you how to use it! By the time we leave, your menu will be inserting your title block with your logo and inserting PE stamps and signatures of your engineers. We will produce electronic PE stamps and signatures for your engineers that will be compatible with your CAD system and set your menu to insert them. Your engineers and CAD technicians will have received training on how to use the tools in eCADlt. If you have an IT person or a CAD manager, we will show that person the basics of how to further customize your menu installation.

What is the cost?

One of the greatest things about eCADlt is that it operates on AutoCAD LT. The savings you experience in a CAD platform using AutoCAD LT pays for the entire eCADlt software, personalized setup, and on-site training with plenty of savings left over. Let's do the math. A 3-year subscription to AutoCAD currently costs $4,410 per seat. A 3-year subscription to AutoCAD LT currently costs $1,140. Let's say you have a firm with (2) electrical engineers and (6) electrical designers/draftspersons. That means you need to provide a CAD system for (8) persons. If you get them AutoCAD subscriptions, you will pay $35,280 to provide AutoCAD to these workers for three years. However, that only puts you at the starting line. You still don't have blocks of electrical devices, luminaires, schedules, and so on. Even if you do have such blocks or can produce them, you still need an effective way of getting them onto your drawings. A block or some circuiting placed on an incorrect layer can become a costly error. If your people have to change to the correct layer, manually find and insert a block, and scale it to the drawing, they will waste immense amounts of time and accuracy will suffer.

Now let's buy those same (8) people 3-year subscriptions to AutoCAD LT for just $9,120 and get them set up on eCADlt for another $12,000 (an approximation - contact us for an exact quotation for your situation). Your total cost is $21,120 for a savings of $14,160 compared to seats of full AutoCAD but now they have everything they need to hit the ground running. They have a complete CAD system that has been customized for them and they have been trained how to use it! Let's extend this math to six years. An AutoCAD system will have cost you $70,560 while the AutoCAD LT / eCADlt system only $30,240 for a savings of $40,320. Let's go nine years and we see the AutoCAD system costing you $105,840 while the AutoCAD LT / eCADlt system only $39,360 for a savings of $66,480. What's not to love about this? 

Let me be clear about this: eCADlt is not a subscription that you keep paying for. It's a one-time investment because your eCADlt software never expires. Once you've purchased it, had it customized, installed, and received training on it, your only future costs would be if you wanted to upgrade to future versions or purchase additional license seats.

Is AutoCAD LT going to cripple me?

Many people don't realize just how capable and powerful AutoCAD LT really is. My consulting engineering firm has used AutoCAD LT since 2003 and most of our clients never even knew it. The DWG files they sent us xref'ed right into our drawings and the files we sent them were 100% TrustedDWG files. It's completely transparent. If you're producing 2D construction documents, then AutoCAD LT provides you all the power you need. Indeed, since the system requirements for AutoCAD LT are less than they are for AutoCAD, your computer will likely run it better and be more responsive which will further boost your speed and productivity.

Contact us today and let us put together a quotation for your firm - the software, the on-site customization, the personal installation, and the training. Visit our YouTube channel to see our instructional CAD videos and a demonstration of eCADlt in action.