Wiring harness design in CATIA V5 - 3D modeling Week 7 Challenge

AIM

To prepare a flattened-view of a previously created harness assembly

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this project is to create a flattened-view for a harness assembly and then place it on the drawing sheet. It is desired that the bundles with protective coverings are represented with different visuals on the drawing sheet.

To make a flattened view of any wiring harness we should be working in the Electrical Harness Flattening workbench of CATIA V5. We should make sure that the flattening file should be in the same folder where you have all the parts of the harness assembly.

CONTENT

The following steps are to be done to complete this project.

STEP 1

• Defining Harness Flattening parameters
• First, we should make a new product file inside the Electrical Harness Flattening workbench.
• Second, we should define the harness flattening parameters by clicking on its icon.
• In the general tab, we should select the settings. After the general tab settings are complete we should define the settings for the drawing tab.
• It should be noticed that the type of representation for the bundle segment and protective covering are different from each other.
• Also for devices, "3D projection" can be used if the connectors are added to the electrical drawing catalog.

STEP 2

• Rename the product file as the Flattening Product.

STEP 3

• Bring the harness assembly into the newly created Flattening Product by using the "Extract" feature.
• First, we should align the Flattening Product and Harness Bundle tabs vertically.
• Now, we should use the "EXTRACT" feature in the electrical harness flattening workbench to bring the harness assembly into the Flattening product.
• It should be noted that our geometrical bundle assembly or harness assembly file is now changed to an "EHF" file which stands for "Electrical Harness Flattening".

STEP4- 

• Flattening of the harness
• To flatten the harness we should select the flatten plane and then select all the branches present in the harness assembly.
• The raw flattened-view of the wiring harness along the selected XY-Flattening Plane.

STEP 5

• Rotate the bundle segments
• All the bundle segments if needed should be rotated in the desired direction as needed by using the "Rotate" feature in the flattening workbench.
• It should be noted, that as we have "FACE PLANE" as the flattening plane so we should make sure that we rotate the bundle segment only along the "FACE PLANE".
• After all the bundle segments have been rotated in the desired direction we should update the view to get the updated flattened view of the harness bundle.

STEP 6

• Synchronize

STEP 7

• Streamline the flattened harness
• For a better representation, we can use some other features like Bend, Roll to streamline the harness.
• At this stage, fake scaling can be done for a few bundle segments if needed.
• For the current wiring harness both the "BEND" and "ROLL" features are used to bend and orient the bundle segments in the desired position.

STEP 8- 

• Make a new drawing
• Make a new drawing file and define the drawing parameters

STEP 9- 

• Insert view into the drawing file.
• We will insert the front view of the wiring harness into the drawing file .
• We should make sure we have both harness drawing and flattening product files opened side by side.

STEP 10- 

• Define drawing properties
• I should be noted that for the "dress-up" settings 3D wireframe in always "ON".
• If this setting is not selected the bundle segments will not be visible on the drawing view.
• We should make sure that the in "Graphic replacement" for devices "3D Projection" feature is "ON".
• This will help us to see the exact representation of the electrical connectors in the drawing file.
• As per the objective of this project, we should make sure that the bundle segments and protective covering are represented differently.

STEP 11- Final drawing

CONCLUSION- 

The final flattened drawing was produced for the wiring harness. As per requirement, different representation was given to the bundle segments and the protective coverings.