Wiring Harness Layout Drawing

[JWayman]

Good morning,

One of our users has asked me the best way to achieve this drawing using Wildfire 4:

Ideally, he would like it to be a sub-assembly that he can use in the main assembly, but that he can also use to create a parametric drawing of this nature.

He is able to create the drawing as shown, but I am not convinced it is nearly as parametric as we would wish. Furthermore, the sub-assembly is this shape, so he cannot use it in the main assembly.

A BOM table showing wire lengths would be nice, too.

I know there are ways of making things fit, such as flexibility, simplified reps, etc., but I am interested in knowing what represents best practice.

We do have the cabling module, but, as many of you will be aware, it is as friendly as a cornered rat, so we would like to steer clear if at all possible!

Even if we do create something like this sub-assembly in Cabling, is it then easy to create this kind of drawing?

I look forward to your advice.

WF4, M220

Thanks,

John

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[gkoch]

John,

is this the Flat harness model, created with reference to the actual 3D harness part that fits into the top assembly?

Something in your description gives me the idea, this model might have been actually designed this way as a harness part in assembly mode - which would explain why you are obviously not very convinced about the functionality.

For a flat harness, creating this kind of drawing does not seem to be much of an effort and adding BOM tables with wire lengths is a usual procedure (you will need the Pro/REPORT option, like for any repeat region)

Or is it the thick display (instead of the schematic line display) that you are missing?

Gunter

[JWayman]

Gunter,

Thank you.

Yes, this model has been created flat, as you see it in the drawing. It is pretty well useless for use in the 3D assembly, in which it would be curved in 3 dimensions.

I have, in the past, briefly done battle with Pro/Cabling in WF4. I think it is generally considered to be much inferior to the same module in later versions. That is certainly something to look forward to...

I wondered whether anyone had a nifty way to create a flat harness drawing from a sub-assembly model that actually fits the assembly! Without recourse to Pro/Cabling, that is.

John

[gkoch]

Hi John,

I agree that cabling is not the easiest module.

Correcting mistakes in the design could have been a pain in Wildfire 4.0 and before. Plus it was easy to make mistakes. So experience made a real difference in this module.

The correction mechnisms may have not improved much in Creo, but the chance to make mistakes has been significantly reduced with the current workflow. Most pain points currently, are about dealing with legacy cabling assemblies.

But even with the old cersion, thinking of designing the flat harness alone gives me the creep!

I'd rather redo the complete cabling and start all over again with the flat harness, one hand tied to my back, than manually creating a flat harness based on the 3D cabling. I am really curious whether somebody tried this - well, someone without the cabling mode would probably have to...

I really recommend you take another look, because this is exactly what cabling/harness MFG are made for.

Gunter

[JWayman]

Thanks, Gunter, I will.

[BrianMartin]

Hi John...

While the cabling module did get much, much better after Wildfire 4.0, you can still make it work for you without much trouble if you incorporate some of the Ninja Cabling techniques. Basically, the entire point of my presentation for Ninja Cabing was to show people they could use the cabling module without much training.

This is contrary to the popular myth that it's hard, requires tons of specialized training, and doesn't work well. All of that is nonsense. You don't even need a very experienced user to make some pretty insane harnesses... plus you'll gain the ability to flatten the harness and tabulate the data you're asking for.

The basics of Ninja Cabling in a few sentences is this:

• Draw some regular old Pro/E sketches (curves) to help lay out where you want your cables to run
• Slap a "network" on top of those sketches
• Use a text editor (like Notepad) to create a file the cabling module can use to automatically handle most of the remaining work
• Read in the file, hit a few buttons, and viola... the harness is done!
• Flatten the harness... make a drawing... take a bow... collect a raise from your boss.

If that sounds like something you'd like to try, I'll explain further and provide you with access to the DropBox account where all of the Ninja Cabling documentation is stored. Most of the material is geared for Wildfire 5 and above... but the general techniques are the same for Wildfire 4... and should work as far back as Pro/E v.20 (circa 1999).

Thanks!

-Brian

[JWayman]

Thanks, Brian,

I'd like to take you up on your kind offer.

Cheers,

John

[pzairis]

Hi Guys,

I have a problem when I am trying to add parameters to be shown in the table of BOM for a harness drawing. I have added a table which shows the wire name, the from conn, to conn, spool etc. The problem is related to the from/to conn columns. Initially I have put :harn.run.cond.from/to.conn.name. The fact is that I want to replace parameter: name, with a user defined parameter (I use the parameter PARTNR) to show the part number of each connector, instead of the name.

When I use the parameter PARTNR (harn.run.cond.from/to.conn.PARTNR), the columns become empty. I attach some pictures to show what is going on.

Thamks in advance.

p.s. I have posted in another discussion as well, but I have not got any answer yet and this issue is crucial for me, so I would appreciate any help.

[ptc-6295404]

the syntax would be

harn

run

cond

from / to

user_defined

PARTNR

When you double click on the cell you will get the drop down where you can select the parameters, you will also need to make sure that you have the parameter PARTNR defined in the parts parameter file

Adrian