EPAIII
Diamond
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2003
- Location
- Beaumont, TX, USA
RANT mode: ON!
I have spent a career working on electronic circuits, some of which were so large and complicated that the circuit drawings alone occupied a three inch thick, three ring binder. And those binders were FULL. Instructions and parts lists were in separate binders. Not bragging, just a fact. The only way that these circuit drawings were ever presented was with SCHEMATIC drawings. They did not use ladder drawings. They did not use pictorial drawings. They did not use other styles. They used schematic drawings.
And those schematic drawings were always organized so that the circuit flowed in a LOGICAL manner, usually from upper left to lower right. Or all the inputs were on the left and all the outputs were on the right. And all connections to a component that are related to a single function that component performed were in the SAME location, again usually with the inputs on the left and outputs on the right. If a relay was used, then the coil and the contacts were drawn right next to each other so there was no confusion as to where the other parts of it were. If an IC or a section of one was used, it was drawn as one block, again with ins on the left and outs on the right. You could see it all at a glance.
When you have to understand a circuit, that is simply the very best way to have it presented. Hands down. If those complex electronic devices that I had to work with were drawn in the manner that most industrial circuits are, I would have had to spend at least ten times as much time trying to follow them. I simply do not understand why there are so many pictorial or ladder or other forms of drawings that only confuse and make tracing the circuit a lot more difficult.
I just tried to read a post by someone who was asking how to connect a motor to a drum switch. His hand drawn circuit was OK as far as it went but he also posted the image of a professionally(?) drawn one from Daton that would have taken me a much longer time to understand than the whole thing was worth. It was drawn using a combination of pictorial and schematic symbols. It did not have any organization other than perhaps the order in which the terminals appear on the terminal board. Where is the logic in that? It would be better to draw a readable drawing and then number the terminals on that drawing, left to right and then build the motor with that terminal numbering. That is exactly how I HAVE DONE similar and much more complicated drawings for designs that I was making. I did it both for future people who would have to understand it and also for myself when I went back to that drawing the next day. Are they deliberately trying to have people burn up their new Dayton motors?
Why are these drawings made absurdly difficult to understand when there is a system that works so much better?
Why?????
Rant mode: Off.
I have spent a career working on electronic circuits, some of which were so large and complicated that the circuit drawings alone occupied a three inch thick, three ring binder. And those binders were FULL. Instructions and parts lists were in separate binders. Not bragging, just a fact. The only way that these circuit drawings were ever presented was with SCHEMATIC drawings. They did not use ladder drawings. They did not use pictorial drawings. They did not use other styles. They used schematic drawings.
And those schematic drawings were always organized so that the circuit flowed in a LOGICAL manner, usually from upper left to lower right. Or all the inputs were on the left and all the outputs were on the right. And all connections to a component that are related to a single function that component performed were in the SAME location, again usually with the inputs on the left and outputs on the right. If a relay was used, then the coil and the contacts were drawn right next to each other so there was no confusion as to where the other parts of it were. If an IC or a section of one was used, it was drawn as one block, again with ins on the left and outs on the right. You could see it all at a glance.
When you have to understand a circuit, that is simply the very best way to have it presented. Hands down. If those complex electronic devices that I had to work with were drawn in the manner that most industrial circuits are, I would have had to spend at least ten times as much time trying to follow them. I simply do not understand why there are so many pictorial or ladder or other forms of drawings that only confuse and make tracing the circuit a lot more difficult.
I just tried to read a post by someone who was asking how to connect a motor to a drum switch. His hand drawn circuit was OK as far as it went but he also posted the image of a professionally(?) drawn one from Daton that would have taken me a much longer time to understand than the whole thing was worth. It was drawn using a combination of pictorial and schematic symbols. It did not have any organization other than perhaps the order in which the terminals appear on the terminal board. Where is the logic in that? It would be better to draw a readable drawing and then number the terminals on that drawing, left to right and then build the motor with that terminal numbering. That is exactly how I HAVE DONE similar and much more complicated drawings for designs that I was making. I did it both for future people who would have to understand it and also for myself when I went back to that drawing the next day. Are they deliberately trying to have people burn up their new Dayton motors?
Why are these drawings made absurdly difficult to understand when there is a system that works so much better?
Why?????
Rant mode: Off.