SW Routing

Guide to 3D Electrical Systems Design using SolidWorks Routing The World’s #1 Mainstream 3D Design Software SolidWorks® Routing software helps automate the design of routed systems, including electrical cabling and harness systems, along with tubing and piping systems. Working inside SolidWorks 3D mechanical design software, the SolidWorks Routing add-in application provides powerful 3D parametric routed systems design tools and a valuable fitting and electrical connector library that enable you to develop varying types of routes quickly and easily. This guide includes: • The Benefits of 3D Routed System Design Advantages of using SolidWorks Routing SolidWorks Routing in a typical electrical design process Graphical examples of the design process Railcar braking system Design data courtesy of These designs traditionally relied on hard prototypes WABCO Transit Division to be created so that the path and details of electrical of Wabtec Corporation, Inc. cable and harnesses could be determined. SolidWorks Routing enables the designers to develop these designs before any hard prototypes are created. This helps accommodate customer demand for clean-looking, compact, tightly packaged products and competitive pressures to shorten design cycles, reduce development costs, improve product quality, and accelerate time-to-market. • • Advantages of SolidWorks Routing for designing electrical cables and harnesses • Using SolidWorks Routing software for 3D routed system design has many advantages over traditional 2D approaches, including: • Faster product design – SolidWorks Routing software streamlines routing design tasks by enabling you to create then edit routes in the 3D product model, as opposed to working with hard prototypes. Quick, easy parametric design changes – Because SolidWorks Routing software is parametric, associative, and fully integrated with the base SolidWorks 3D model, making design changes becomes a fast and simple process. For example, changes to the overall product dimensions will automatically adjust cable/harness and wire lengths, saving you time while maintaining design intent. Flexible, time-saving assembly design – SolidWorks provides the flexibility to design assemblies using either top-down or bottom-up approaches. For example, you can create all of the parts for an assembly first, then assemble them; or design just the major parts of an assembly then create other necessary parts for the system, including electrical cable routes, as you refine the design. Improved product design visualization – The ability to visualize how your electrical routes integrate with your product enables you to check your design from any angle, identify potential issues, and resolve problems early in the design cycle. Unlike traditional 2D wiring diagrams alone, 3D routed systems designs provide the opportunity to view the entire product from any angle before it is built. Using photorealistic rendering techniques, you can specify the look and texture of materials, backgrounds, and bases, and create animations, including product rotations and disassemblies. Interference detection – SolidWorks enables you to check for interferences between parts and assemblies, including routed system components, before manufacturing a single part. • • • SolidWorks Routing automates the development of elaborate routed system designs, such as the railcar braking system shown here. Image courtesy of WABCO Transit Division of Wabtec Corporation, Inc. • 1 • Automatic drawing and documentation creation – SolidWorks automatically generates 2D engineering drawings, including nail board drawings and connector wiring instructions for electrical cables and harnesses to guide manufacturing. Automatic bill of material (BOM) creation – SolidWorks can generate a BOM automatically for all items in the electrical cable or harness design, such as wire lengths or total electrical terminal requirements, and locates this information on the drawing. • Step 1: Create the basic design of the product in SolidWorks prior to adding electrical routes. Image courtesy of WABCO Transit Division of Wabtec Corporation, Inc. Use of SolidWorks Routing in a typical electrical/electronic product design process Companies use different methods to design products that involve electrical aspects. The following process outlines how SolidWorks Routing can play an import role in a generic electrical/electronic product design process. This process will vary from industry to industry. • Step 1: Generate your initial product design using SolidWorks Engineers often begin the product design process by developing the general electrical/electronic technology plan, along with the overall package or enclosure design for the finished product. This includes beginning to add the major components along with standard components to the product design. Step 2: Develop the electrical design, often working in parallel, using electrical CAD tools (or other solutions) The electrical detail design process may come before the mechanical process, or in parallel with it. In either case the electrical design process typically includes some PCB design (including 3D models of major components) along with system-level electrical design. The systems-level design process typically generates a connection list (wire list) detailing how electrical components are connected in the system throughout the design. Step 3: Import electrical design details into SolidWorks using familiar Microsoft Excel format SolidWorks Routing is designed to import electrical CAD data, including wire/cable libraries, component lists, and From-To connection information in Microsoft Excel format. Step 4: Create desired electrical cable/harness route segments in the SolidWorks-based systems design using autoroute, routing through hangers/clips, route automatically on drop of clip, etc. The electrical CAD data can be imported prior to creating 3D mechanical routes or the information can be imported after the routes are “roughed in.” This gives the mechanical engineer great flexibility in working with the electrical/electronic design group. Importing the From-To connection information along with the wire library information enables the software to automatically size the outside diameter of cable/harness segments. Developing a route is as easy as using the autorouting capability or sketching in space. You can define routes by their relationships to other surfaces, edges, or components, such as parallel or perpendicular, so that if a related parameter changes, the route changes with it. You pre-place mounting clips or hangers, then run the route through them or drag and drop the clips and have the route automatically follow the clips. Adding a split entity point anywhere along the route enables you to add a branch of a harness segment. The locations of a branch can be dimensioned or initially left floating until the design is finalized. • Step 2: Electrical design data is created using electrical CAD tools or other solutions (Sample systems-level schematic from ORCAD shown above). • • Step 3: Import electrical design data into SolidWorks Routing using familiar Microsoft® Excel format — available from most electrical CAD tools. 2 • Step 5: Edit the route designs as needed as the mechanical or electrical details are refined Changes to the mechanical design of the product (e.g., increasing the overall length of the product) automatically change the length of the cable/harness segments and length of individual wires in each segment. Revisions made by the electrical design group can be re-exported to SolidWorks Routing (and reimported) which result in changes to the electrical segments (e.g., increases in the number of wires in a segment will increase the O.D. of the 3D model of the harness). Step 6: Create manufacturing documentation for the cable/harness routes, including harness board drawings, wire cut-lists, connector installation details, and more After creating a harness or cable route in the 3D model, a 2D drawing of the route can be created to detail the design for manufacturing. This 2D drawing, or nail board drawing, shows a flattened view of the 3D route and includes manufacturing details including bill of materials for the cable/harness, wire cutting lengths, wire summary, connection wiring details, etc. Changes made to the 3D cable/harness route automatically change this nail-board drawing documentation to ensure the documentation is consistent with the 3D model of the electrical route. Step 4: Next, create desired electrical cable/harness route segments in the design using autoroute, routing through hangers/clips, route automatically on drop of clip, etc. Image courtesy of WABCO Transit Division of Wabtec Corporation, Inc. • Fitting and Connector Library parts and use of 3D component models from industry sources SolidWorks Routing allows you to use parts from the library of components included with the product along with 3D parts from other sources. In addition, the user can build his/her own parts. The built-in library includes more than 2,000 components and covers a wide range of basic electrical connectors and tubing and pipe components. These parts are built using Configuration Management techniques, which SolidWorks offers for both parts and assemblies, unlike other mid-range CAD products. Another great source for 3D parts, ready for use with SolidWorks Routing, is 3D ContentCentralSM ( www.3dcontentcentral.com ). This is accessible on the web or directly from the Design Library inside of SolidWorks 2005. Step 5: After creating your routes using SolidWorks Routing, you can easily edit the design by drag & drop of the route segment or re-importing electrical design data, which resizes the segments automatically. Image courtesy of WABCO Transit Division of Wabtec Corporation, Inc. Using SolidWorks Routing, electrical parts can be equipped with intelligent information including one or more connection points with required strip length for each wire. Electrical component manufacturers frequently offer 3D models of components from their web site in generic CAD file formats. These are generally easy to equip with necessary intelligent points to take full advantage of the capabilities of SolidWorks Routing. New versions of library parts can be generated easily by simply inserting additional records in the design tables for existing library parts. When you create new components to meet your needs, you can also leverage configuration management techniques to create variations of parts — of varying sizes, add options, dimensions, etc. — from your original file. The powerful top-down assembly design techniques of SolidWorks software enable you to design these parts to fit between other parts, including routes that are sketched around existing components. SolidWorks Routing enables these parts to be positioned automatically and mated in place when designing routed systems. Examples of custom parts include terminals, cord clamps, plugs, receptacles, or any part that has wires/cables connected to it. These custom parts are typically created early in the design process and saved in libraries for future use. Step 6: Complete the design by creating manufacturing documentation for the cable/harness routes, including harness board drawings, wire cut-lists, connector installation details, etc. Image courtesy of WABCO Transit Division of Wabtec Corporation, Inc. 3 Summary More and more of today’s products require some sort of routed system. If your product designs include electrical cabling subsystems, tubing, or piping, SolidWorks Routing software provides the automated capabilities you need to bring products to market faster and more cost-effectively, helping you to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive market. For additional information about SolidWorks products, check out the online SolidWorks Express newsletter at: http://www.solidworks.com/swexpress/index.html SolidWorks Corporation 300 Baker Avenue Concord, MA 01742 USA Toll-free: +1-800-693-9000 Outside the US: +1-978-371-5011 www.solidworks.com info@solidworks.com SolidWorks Routing enables the designer to add all the routed systems to the design which improves BOM accuracy and design completeness. Design courtesy of WABCO Transit Division of Wabtec Corporation, Inc. Recent Industry Awards CAD CAM Germany: Innovator of the Year 2003 NASA Tech Briefs: Product of the Year Award (2002) (second time winner) CADENCE magazine: Editor’s Choice Award (2002) CADALYST magazine: National Design Engineering Show — Best-of-Show Award (2002) CADENCE magazine: National Design Engineering Show — Show Stopper Award (2002) SolidWorks is a registered trademark and 3D ContentCentral is a service mark of SolidWorks Corporation. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. © 2004 SolidWorks Corporation. All rights reserved. This information is subject to change without notice. MKRSWPENG0904 V3 4