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As CAD increases in sophistication and intelligence, the range of product features that can be modelled grows.
The EMbassy Wire harness design range from Linius comprises two versions with similar functionality; a standalone version with an integrated modeller and EmbassyWorks, a SolidWorks Gold Partner add-in.
Significantly in the latest version 3 the external Oracle database has been dropped in favour of integrated SolidWorks 3rd Party Storage that stores harness data directly within part and assembly files.
This not only aids data management and revision control but through the use of SolidWorks constraints also offers full associativity between the mechanical elements and the cabling channel positions and wire lengths.
A small selection of functionality is required in the part modelling environment in order to add pins and associated properties to connector parts.
Pins are essentially points created within 3D SolidWorks sketches with constraints added to position on centre within bores or aligned to surfaces as required.
Pins are ascribed unique identifiers and part data can include vendor details.
Once connectors have been located within an assembly, wires can be added either manually or for more complex layouts either interactively or fully automatically from ASCII wire list and config files or an EDIF import file.
As a minimum this must define a library part number, a design specific pin reference for each end point and a unique wire ID.
Irrespective of the method used, the wire is initially drawn point to point.