About Laying Out Cables

You can use either the Manual Fan or Auto Fan commands to lay out cables. The following commands are available when you click CABLE MFG > Flatten > Lay Out:

• Set Start Pnt—Selects a location from which to lay out cables.

• Manual Fan—Lets you decide the locations, bend angles, and bend radius between selected locations. This command is automatically highlighted when a start location has been selected.

• Auto Fan—Flattens the harness automatically from the current start point according to system parameters set in the cabling assembly. You can modify the automatically flattened harness as needed. If a loop exists in the reference harness while laying out cables using this command, you are prompted to pick a side of the loop. Creo Parametric uses this side to flatten the cables. You can select this command at any time during the manual lay out procedure to flatten the remaining portions of the harness.

• Close Loop—Lets you flatten the open side of a loop, that is, close the loop. You must pick the two ends of the open side, either in the flat harness or in the reference harness. The open side is automatically flattened. The other sides of the loop are not affected.

• You can close other loops till you quit the selection.

• If the two endpoints of the open side are far from each other, you may need to adjust the bend angle.

• Flat Orient—Lets you select the orientation in which the flat locations of a flattened harness are packed. The orientation is with respect to the flattened harness plane and affects all flat locations in the flattened harness. When you select this command, the FLAT ORIENT menu appears with the following commands:

As you select locations using the Manual Fan and Auto Fan commands on the Lay Out menu, you are laying out the locations and any cables routed between them. If all but one wire is suppressed, and you lay out that wire between two locations, when you resume the other wires, portions routed between locations that have already been flattened are automatically laid out.

You can use this technique to your advantage in simplifying the harness while laying out the main trunk. You can then resume the rest of the wires, and use Auto Fan on the remaining segments.

The Manual and Auto Fan commands cannot flatten loop type configurations. For a loop, one leg of the loop is not flattened, but you can still flatten the rest of the harness. Use Close Loop to flatten the remaining leg of the loop.