October 28, 2026 · otomakeit-oracleeplanautocad-electricalecadelectrical-designcontrol-systems
Does it actually matter anymore? Looking at my latest results, I don’t think it does. The slides below show why.
I’m building Otomakeit Oracle, a system that designs industrial control systems. If you missed my earlier article, here is the short version:
- Oracle builds the design as a model in a database: every device, terminal, wire, cable, I/O point, part and rating, each one traced to where it came from.
- That model is the output of the design process. The model is the system.
- An ECAD program only turns the model into drawings people are used to reading. A connector, an extension of Oracle, does that for one tool. A connector can be built for other ECAD tools too.
Three connectors
Right now I’m building three connectors:
- EPLAN connector: a native EPLAN P8 project
- AutoCAD Electrical connector: a native AutoCAD Electrical project with DWG drawings
- Oracle native connector: Oracle draws the set itself (PDF, SVG, DXF), with no ECAD software at all
Each slide shows the same page from all three. It’s the same model of a test project, a small tank pump control panel: 10 schematic pages and 4 panel layout pages, including the door layout and the side walls.
Same values, different symbols
The outputs are more or less identical. They have the same device tags, wire numbers, terminals, PLC addresses, part numbers and BOM item numbers, and the same page and rung numbering. None of these is typed into a drawing. Each one is a value in the model, so no connector can get it wrong on its own.
The differences you’ll see are deliberate. Each connector uses its own tool’s native symbol library and conventions. A normally open level switch is stored in the model as “normally open”, and EPLAN and AutoCAD Electrical each draw it their own way. An EPLAN user gets a project that behaves like EPLAN, and an AutoCAD Electrical user gets one that behaves like AutoCAD Electrical.
A delivery format, not a design decision
So for me, the question “EPLAN or AutoCAD Electrical?” is turning from a design decision into a delivery format:
- The customer requires EPLAN? EPLAN connector.
- The customer requires AutoCAD Electrical? AutoCAD Electrical connector.
- No native project or DWG needed? Oracle produces the PDF set itself, with no ECAD licence.
Changing the tool doesn’t mean redesigning anything. A design change is made once, in the model, and every connector regenerates its output from it.
The ECAD tool doesn’t go away. It becomes a view of the design instead of the place where the design lives.
All 14 page comparisons are in the full slide set: download the PDF (16 pages, 1.6 MB).
If your customers could choose the output format freely, which one would they ask for most often? The other Oracle articles are collected on the Otomakeit Oracle page.
