From Harness Model to Harness Layout in minutes

By now many of you have heard about the new Solid Edge Electrical package from Siemens PLM. If you haven’t, you can check it out here: https://solidedge.siemens.com/en/solutions/products/electrical-design/.

The website states that:

Solid Edge helps you overcome electro mechanical design challenges with a dedicated solution for electrical design—enabling true co-design collaboration across electrical and mechanical domains.

Sounds impressive, but what does it really mean? In this blog, I want to show you a simple scenario that will illustrate the power and speed of this new module.

In this scenario, I have designed and modeled a wire harness sub-assembly for use in my larger master assembly.

I have designed this based on needs and specifications from the assembly without having a pre-existing schematic. I like to make sure everything fits before I worry about any documentation. Once I am satisfied with the model, I’ll need to create the accompanying documentation.For this sub-assembly, I will need a harness layout or flat harness design. In the past this would require a bit of time to re-create this model in my 2D schematic package. However, with Solid Edge Electrical, I can generate the 2D harness design in just a few minutes.

I start by creating a new diagram in Solid Edge Electrical. This diagram can be created in a new project or be added to an existing project.

With both Solid Edge and Solid Edge Electrical open, I connect the two products by clicking the connect icon in both packages.

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Note: It’s worth noting that each package has configuration tools to set this up in advance. Plus, the packages can be on the same computer or different computers.

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Next, I launch the Bridge-In command from within the Solid Edge Electrical software and set my options.

Once I’ve set my options, I click Import and the harness design is automatically created for me. If necessary, I can easily reposition the symbols and tables.

In this example, my modeled parts in Solid Edge have corresponding internal parts with symbols in Solid Edge Electrical.This results in a very fast generation of my harness layout. Furthermore, I can use the Cross Select command. This command allows me to click on a component in Solid Edge and the corresponding layout image highlights in Solid Edge Electrical. Likewise, I can click on a layout image and the corresponding model part highlights.

This is just one example of how the new Solid Edge Electrical package can save you time and money. Solid Edge Electrical includes a schematic diagramming application for wire design,harness design and layout tool, and Part library and Symbol library creation and management tools, but it is the collaboration capability that sets this package apart from all other packages that we’ve used in the past. If you’d like to learn more about the new Solid Edge Electrical, you can visit the link shown above, contact your Account Manager, or contact us at sales@designfusion.com.

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