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Design Resources

Free tools and reference material from the Think‑PLC panel shop. Built for the jobs we run into ourselves — planning material, cutting it without waste, laying out panel legends, and finding the part number you actually need. No sign‑up, nothing leaves your browser.

Be a Better Designer Series

Things you can use right now

The Be a Better Designer Series is our set of free tools for the parts of panel design that usually get done on a napkin. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, stored on our servers, or shared.

Live

Cut List Optimizer

Wire duct ships in 6′ sticks and DIN rail in 1–2 m lengths; your panel does not. Drop in the lengths off your BOM and get back the exact number of sticks to buy, the order to cut them in, and a costed consumables list — kerf and keep‑length included.

  • Panduit duct
  • Phoenix Contact & Allen‑Bradley rail
  • Generic / your own stock
  • Reference pricing built in
  • Printable cut sheet & CSV
 Open the tool Live

Custom Legend Plates

Lay out pushbutton and selector legends, yellow E‑stop collars with arc text, blank nameplates, metal tags and a UL 508A panel data plate — then send the artwork straight to us to laser‑engrave. Sized and worded to NFPA 79 and NEC 409.110 so the panel marking is right the first time.

  • Pushbutton & selector legends
  • E‑stop collars
  • Nameplates & metal tags
  • UL 508A data plate
  • Live artwork preview
 Open the bench Live

Full-Load Amps Calculator

Motors, heaters, drives and control transformers in — and out come the three numbers a panel actually needs: the full-load amps for the nameplate, the minimum supply conductor ampacity, and the largest overcurrent device you are allowed to put in front of it. Every line shows the article it came from.

  • NEC Tables 430.247 / 430.248 / 430.250
  • NFPA 79 & NEC 670 for machines
  • UL 508A & NEC 430.24 for panels
  • Interlocked loads counted once
  • Printable calculation sheet & CSV
 Open the calculator Live

Enclosure Cutout Designer

Pick a Saginaw EnviroLine, Rittal AX or Hoffman CONCEPT enclosure — or type in any door size — and lay out the 22 and 30 mm operators, the HMI and any custom cutout on the actual door face. Drag, snap, and get flagged the moment something crowds an edge or another device. Out the other end: a hole schedule and a DXF the shop can cut from.

  • Real SCE, Rittal & Hoffman door sizes built in
  • Keyed Ø22.5 / Ø30.6 operator holes
  • Siemens KTP/TP/MTP & A-B PanelView cutouts
  • Edge, overlap & spacing checks
  • DXF, CSV hole schedule & printable drawing
 Open the designer Pro tool

Subpanel Layout Designer

Pick a Saginaw subpanel — or any plate you type in — run Panduit duct and DIN rail whose mounting holes land on the real punched patterns, and drop drives and breakers on at the drill patterns from their own manuals. Out the other end: a per-hole drill schedule, a DXF and a drawing the shop can work from. Included for Think-PLC accounts; subscription for everyone else.

  • Real Saginaw subpanel sizes built in
  • Panduit & Phoenix punched-hole grids
  • V20 / G120C / PM240-2 & PowerFlex 52x / 75x patterns
  • 3VA breaker fixing holes & drive cooling keep-outs
  • DXF, CSV drill schedule & printable drawing
 See the tool
Need help with a design? Panel layout, schematics, BOMs, UL 508A compliance, or a second set of eyes before it goes to build — talk to the engineers who fabricate them every day.
Reach out here
Reference

Elsewhere on the site

Part numbers, background and the fastest way to get hold of an engineer.

Standard products Duct, rail, enclosures and the panel hardware we keep on the shelf, with datasheets. Panel build services UL‑listed control panel fabrication out of Winston‑Salem, NC — what we do and how we do it. Case studies Retrofits, robotic cells and standardisation projects, written up with the numbers. PLC training Hands‑on Siemens and controls training for maintenance and engineering teams. FAQ Lead times, UL panel questions, what we need from you to quote a build. Submit a service request Something down, or a change you need on an existing system? Start here.
Missing something?

Tell us what would actually help.

These tools exist because they solved a problem on our own shop floor first. If there is a calculation, template or lookup you keep doing by hand, say so — it may well be the next one we build.

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Disclaimer. The tools and reference material on this page are provided free and as‑is, for planning purposes only. Prices, part numbers, dimensions and availability change constantly and are not a quotation. Always verify against the manufacturer’s current data and measure before you cut. Think‑PLC, LLC accepts no responsibility for mis‑cuts, wasted or short material, pricing or quantity errors, purchasing decisions, or any other loss arising from use of these pages.