Re: Visio Stencils for electrical and mechanical components?

["Amanda A" <bluestreaker1977 -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

I hired a draftsman to do the Solidworks for some prototypes we finalized. 
I am also having him do the assembly instructions...  you know the ones that 
show all the parts and screws, etc that go into a component in a exploded 
view.

What do you guys think of Netzoom? They give you port level details...  It 
is tempting because we piggyback onto existing stuff from other 
manufacturers and they will do custom diagrams for you, which then all the 
other manufacturers can buy from them as well.

The pre-made diagrams for the component parts per manufacturer are great, 
but since we make our own parts, we need to be able to create our components 
from scratch with fans, ports, etc.

http://www.netzoomuniversal.com

I found a few trade articles on it, this one is the most helpful:

http://techrepublic.com.com/5102-1035-1051832.html


The digital photos I took just look so cheesy...  And this goes out to 
marketing and entertainment so there needs to be a little slick factor.

Amanda



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Neufeld"

I haven't tried these. I make my own stencils as I go along. I don't see why 
you'd need to ever hire an illustrator except where you absolutely need a 3D 
or perspective illustration. Most of the time I find a basic 2D drawing in 
Visio is easiest and best for a cabling diagram. I find that going for a 
fancy looking 3D drawing distracts from the clarity of the cable routing, 
not to mention being difficult to maintain.

I try to get the CAD drawings from the mechanical designer of the product, 
and then import them into Visio as a background layer. I then trace over the 
important bits I want in my illustration. Re-using the elements from the CAD 
drawing takes more hassle it seems...

If you can't get any CAD drawings. you can take a digital photo of the back 
panel (take it from as far back as possible to minimize perspective errors). 
Import the digital photo as a background and trace over the important 
bits... 

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