Common Harnesses in Assembly

Hello All.

How would one deal with duplicate harnesses in an assembly?

For example, the same harness is used in two places in an assembly. The lengths should be the same, but the actual routing would be different. I need both harnesses to have the same name, since they would be manufactured as such. There are two problems, which are stated below.

1. How do you ensure that the length of the cable is fixed in the second harness?
2. How do you keep the same name of cable with different routing but same length in the upper assembly?

Your assistance will be sincerely appreciated.

Peace
Aadil

Does anyone have any feedback on this file naming issue?

If they are routed different, they are different. I don't see how they could have the same name. What I've done is flatten out one cable harness and have that drive the drawing and dimensions and the other one is just there for reference.





Now you could explore using a family table harness, but I've neveer got it to work.

Thanks for the reply!!!<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />


Here is the issue that may be clearer to explain with an example. I have two assemblies, one named A and one named B. A and B are completely different assemblies with no common relationship between them except that they use only a few of the same parts - the rest of the parts are different sizes and shapes. The common thing that they do have is that they use the exact same wire harness, but routed slightly different for each assembly. Therefore I would like to create a harness named X_1 for assembly A and X_2 for assembly B which would work great for the different routed or formed states in the assemblies A and B.


Then I want to create only 1 flat harness for the drawing to reference named X.mfg with X.asm and X_flat.asm inside the X.mfg. Then I want to assemble the X.asm into both assemblies A and B as an unplaced member to get my BOM's in drawings for assembly A and B to fill out correctly and filter out therouted version by keying off the underscore. I realize that I have to create a manual BOM balloon for assembly member X in both A and B drawings, but that is a small price to pay for getting the rest to work out.
This method work very well with naming structure for flexible components such as hoses using piping. The important part is getting the BOM to fill out properly so they order the exact same harness described by the flat state. The part that doesn

Any cabling guru's out there experienced this before?


Thanks!

Would be nice if cable part files had the flexibility option eh??


Since it is primarily cosmetic, We would use a seperate assy & cable file name for the 2nd instance of that assy.


hopefully in the future pro/e can do that.

Hi Pete,


You can add flexibility to cables, one problem with doing that live bom balloons do not show up when the cables have been put in as flexible.


Jeff Toff

Hi Jeff!<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />


Can you elaborate on how to use cabling with flexible components? I seem to be missing the entire concept. I've used flex component with springs and it works ok, but not great. I'm really at a loss for doing that with RSD driven cabling. I simply can't figure out any sort of part numbering schemethat will work with all the extra files that cabling brings with it. Seems like a real mess by PTC as they can't even provide an example for this process. Cabling users HAVE to be burdened with this dilemma on a daily basis. What a mess. I'm disappointed with PTC.

You cannot use the flexible option with cables it is not implemented or supported.


Here are some other suggestions


Use part number to link the harnessess, thus you still have to route a harnessess in each asm,ensure that the lengths are the same but withthe same part number your documentation will be correct. You only have to create the Mfg drawing for one as they are the same, especially if the second harness is used for cosmetic reasons.





The second option is to use family tables and skeleton parts, a little more involved but nevertheless would work.


I would suggest that the more people who request PTC to create a solution forstandard harnessess the more chance you all have of the project being completed

Hi Jim,


Take a look at the image, note the cable is flexible. I am using WF3.0





2008-01-10_081150_cable_flex.zip


Jeff

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Congratulations, you are a smart guy; you have found a back door <?:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /></v:stroke></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:ulas></vath><o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></o:lock></v:shape>


However I have to stand by my statement and say that flexible components have not been implemented in cabling design.


You cannot select a harness.prt and make flexible, you have to place the harness asm in a higher level asm and make the asm and harn part flexible


Harness mfg will use the original harness part.


You cannot change the connection points


You cannot drag location points in the flex harness.


If you move a location in the original harness then it will impact the flex harness.


If you change a non variable routing dim in the original harness it will impact the flex harness


Checking the lengths of the harnesses will be problematic and fixing the cabling length will ensure you spend most of your time in regeneration hell


Nothing wrong with what Jeff is suggesting , I advise you test thoroughly ensure your users are fully aware of the limitations


And I recommend you request from <?:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:stockticker>PTC</st1:stockticker> the ability to do true standard harness functionality


Jeff if you have a working procedure then I am sure everyone would love to see it


Jim

Why don't you just create two different assemblies, then give them an identical part number parameter and write a relation in you BOM such that if the part number parameter = "XXX" quantity = 2.

This doesn't help with your current problem, but WF5 is supposed to have something called "Standard Cables" or "Standard Harnesses," which should allow the same harness to be instanced multiple times in the same assembly with the same standard length (like for an off-the-shelf or pre-fabricated harness).

Can I ask how you got your WF5 information? Only PTC/USER technical committees really know what goes on with future development of Pro/E. Feel free to join them from the ptcuser.org website.

what I have been doing in this case is that I have a parameter called Part_No for each component in the assembly level.


And if let say right light harness and left right harness are %100 identical harnesses meaning they have a common one single drawing file for the manufacturer to build. This is physically the same harness but in the model tree they have a different name.


Instead of driving the BOM table by model tree names of members, if you drive the BOM table by user defined Part_No parameter, as long as you have an identical value of this parameter for these two harnesses you will get them in one line with a quantity of 2 in BOM table.

It is awasome we have a product line manager in the trenches with us here!

Our group currently uses the following file naming structure for cabling assemblies harness-assembly#_mechanical-assembly#.ASM This way we know which harness it is and yet we are allowed different routing configurations per assembly. We are not producing manufacturing drawings for our harnesses from Pro yet so I'm not sure how you'd keep track of which assembly would drive the manufacturing documentation.

It doesn't actually matter which will drive the manufacturing documentation as long as the harnesses are %100 identical , meaning the all of the components and wires/cables and the segment length and individual wire lengths, etc. And the name of the drw file should be same as the part number here 1109982.drw


If even one of them differs, then you need to have seperate files for harness assembly, manufacturing assemebly and drawing.


This is what I can think of any new ideas will be appreciated.

I have been working on how to use family tables in cabling and finally figured it out.


So basically, I have one single harness that has instances due to the variances in the routing of the original harness. But those instances are actually the same off-the-shelf items (meaning have the same part numbers).


You should control the lengths of the differently routed branches manually.


I haven't proceeded all the way to harness manufacturing though.


Ali