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I am trying to recreate in Microsoft Visio a diagram of a photovoltaic power plant that would look like the one below.

But I have some issues for doing so, in particular :

  • I don't know how to create a "grid" symbol like the one that is at the bottom right of this picture
  • I don't know how to make an "abbreviated line" with tildes like the ones you can see Inside the PV modules at the extreme left of the picture.

Can someone give me some help with this?

Diagram of a photovoltaic power plant

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  • $\begingroup$ Which version of Visio are you using? Is it standard or professional? $\endgroup$ – user8055 Mar 21 '17 at 19:29
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I had to draw electrical and hydraulic schematics in Microsoft Visio at a past job. I'm glad that is behind me because that software is barely good enough for making flow charts. I would never recommend anyone use it for engineering diagrams.

There are expensive professional software programs that solve this problem much better, but if you are on a budget I would recommend Inkscape. It is much more stable, predictable, and has community/forum support. There is also Digikey Scheme-it. It looks good aside from being proprietary, but I have not used it.

Addressing your question: Visio supports grouping. You can also add snap points inside of groups. To draw your hashed box add a bunch of snap points around the border, connect them with your hash lines, then group all of them. You will have to make an abbreviated line symbol as a separate object with two snap points. Its irritating, but is possible. Welcome to Visio; I wish you better software in the future ;-)

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you! Eventually I finished this drawing in Visio, I just drew by hand the things that I needed. I will definitely try Inkscape or Digikey Scheme-it for the next one. $\endgroup$ – R. Bourgeon Mar 24 '17 at 19:22
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Eventually I finished my flowchart with Visio. Here's how it looks like:

Plant scheme

  • The PV modules were a template already present in Visio.
  • For the inverters, the square box with a diagonal line was an existing template. I added the signs for "DC" and "AC" by finding them in vectorial on Google images.
  • The transformers were an existing template.
  • I used the option "pattern" to have a grid-pattern for the rectangle that represents the grid.
  • The "waves" that means "abbreviation of a line" were made by hand.
  • The battery sign was an existing template.
  • All the rest is only basic geometrical shapes, lines, arrows.
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  • $\begingroup$ How is the PV modules called in the Visio library? Don't seem to find it. Thanks! $\endgroup$ – user29695 Dec 7 '20 at 9:32

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