Wire harness design

Citation

(1999), "Wire harness design", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 71 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.1999.12771aab.002

Wire harness design

Wire harness design

Keywords Software, Harness Software, Harnesses

Harness Software introduced the new version of its desktop wire harness design tool, Desktop Harness Design version 3.0, in the Autodesk Mechanical World at the recent CIM '98 exhibition.

This is the latest software tool from Harness Software, which specialises in design, engineering and manufacturing solutions for the worldwide wire harness industry.

Desktop Harness Design version 3.0 is novel in several ways. First, it reportedly gives users the most advanced capabilities available to route bundles on a 3D model designed in Autodesk Mechanical Desktop. Integrated intelligence allows the user to select surfaces on the model easily without having to rotate it and to pick and place harness components such as clips, grommets and terminators. When laying out bundles, the system makes it simple to route between clips and through grommets taking the bundle minimum bend radius into account.

Routeing a harness at the product design phase is, however, only part of the story. A crucial feature that has been missing for harness design engineers up to now is the ability to convert the above information automatically into a usable 2D environment to support further detailing on the harness.

Desktop Harness Design version 3.0 will, it is claimed, not only convert the 3D layout to a 2D drawing within seconds, but will also enable the user to define the wires in each bundle, select terminals and seals, assign wire types and materials to terminals and terminals to connectors, as well as cross-reference harness components with multiple part numbers, e.g. the OEM's part number or that of a supplier or component manufacturer.

The harness design engineer can then automatically generate wire charts, wire cutting lists, multicore tables, bills of materials and bundle section reports which include diameter calculation.

Last but not least, Desktop Harness Design version 3.0 also claims the ability to import wire information from circuit schematic packages. A harness definition drawing is automatically created by merging this data with the harness branch configuration from the 3D model.

"Desktop Harness Design offers a huge advance over other tools", confirms Ian Thompson, design product manager at Harness Software. "Using industry-specific knowledge and experience, we have tackled the problems of 3D harness routing from a new angle. Our close links with the harness manufacturing industry have allowed us to base the product on manufacturing techniques and the realities of the design to manufacture process. Developing an answer for Autodesk's Mechanical Desktop makes our solution available in an environment familiar to the majority of CAD users."

Thompson's development team was tasked with providing a means of making wire harness design as simple and robust as possible. "The demand for mass customisation of products has led to a rapid increase in the number of variations in the harness. This consequently increases cost, as all stages of the design to manufacture process become more difficult. Desktop Harness Design makes it far simpler for designers to develop an integrated logical and physical design, so improving design quality and simplifying testing and prototyping."

Desktop Harness Design is compatible with Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 3.0 and AutoCAD 14. It can also interface with CAPITAL H, Harness Software's advanced wire harness engineering and manufacturing system. CAPITAL H allows additional validation of the harness, as well as labour time calculation and costing, and the production of the detailed form board drawing used by manufacturing.

Desktop Harness Design has been designed with the challenges faced by the modern harness designer as its primary focus. The flexibility of the system makes it suitable for any product application and it can be implemented to suit individual company design and engineering pro- cesses.

Further details are available from Harness Software Limited. Tel: +44 0161 718 7788; E-mail: Harness@compuserve.com; Website: http://www.harness-software.com