About Harness Design
A flattened harness assembly is the 3D cabling harness after it has been laid out on a nail board in the manufacturing assembly.
This flattened harness assembly is used to make drawings of the flat harness. It can only be retrieved by either retrieving the manufacturing model or a drawing that references the flattened harness assembly. The flattened harness contains:
• Three assembly datum planes used for layout and orientation.
• An assembly coordinate system. The cables are laid out in the XY-plane by default. You can twist the cable out of this plane using FLATTEN > Twist.
• Flattened harness features—These are assembly features created in the flattened harness assembly as you lay out the cables of the 3D harness. These features show the manufactured dimensions, for example, the cable length from one location to another, or the bend radius and bend angle around a pin on the nail board.
• Components—The connectors at which cables terminate and splices and components, through which they pass, can be assembled to the flattened harness. Wires can be fanned out to the correct entry port on connectors. You can also specify components to be attached to the harness in the 3D assembly, in which case they appear in the flattened harness.
When you begin to manufacture a 3D harness assembly, you are prompted for three object names:
• Manufacturing model (.asm—new file)
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 As of the Wildfire 5 release, all Manufacturing models are saved as Assembly files. When you open a legacy MFG file it is automatically saved as an ASM file. |
• Reference a harness part (.prt—existing 3D harness)
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If there are subharnesses, you can specify one.
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• Flattened harness assembly name (.asm—new file)
The manufacturing model is the upper-level parent for the flattened data and consists of:
• The 3D harness part as a reference (you cannot see the entire assembly on the screen, but you can see the 3D harness part)
• The flattened harness assembly
• Manufacturing information
The flattened harness is automatically updated whenever you make changes in the shape or length of the 3D harness. This lets you create the flat harness at the same time that you route the 3D harness.
This manufacturing model pulls in the entire 3D assembly, not just the simplified representation in which the 3D harness was routed for reference.
During the layout, you can add bends and twists to pre-form the harness for difficult contours during assembly.
You can use the View tab commands, as well as the regular pan, zoom, and spin commands on the 3D harness while you are laying out the cable.
Modifying Flat Harness Features and Components
You can modify the following dimensions on the flat harness:
• Bend and Twist angles
• Bend radii
• Length of breaks
• Location of breaks
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• Flattened cable portion lengths cannot be modified in the Manufacture mode.
• Drawing dimensions of cables do not include the lengths of breaks added in the layout of the harness.
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