You can use Cabling's ECAD interface to automatically create or verify your harness assembly's connections based on information contained in a netlist. The netlist can come from a schematic capture system or can be created manually in the following format:
J2|123456|1|J3|123456|1|1.5|Red
What do these columns represent?
From:
Column 1: Reference designator assigned to part using Creo Elements/Direct Cabling
Column 2: Physical part name (.pkg)
Column 3: Pin number
To:
Column 4: Reference designator assigned to part using Creo Elements/Direct Cabling
Column 5: Physical part name (.pkg)
Column 6: Pin number
Column 7: Wire diameter
Column 8: Wire color
Reference designators indicate the information to connect the terminals of a cable to various connectors in a circuit. Following are the restrictions on characters used in the reference designators:
• Avoid the following characters: *?<>|[:]\/"";=+%,$&~!#@^
• The length of reference designator should be between 1 to 240 characters
To automatically create connections based on a netlist,
2. If necessary, assign reference designators. Reference designators distinguish physically identical connectors and terminals from each other with respect to connections created automatically using the ECAD interface.
If your harness assembly includes multiple instances of the same connector or terminal, you need to assign reference designators.
a. Click Interface and then, in the ECAD group, click the arrow next to RefDes.
b. Click Add reference designators. The Add RefDes dialog box opens.
c. Select a Part, and give it a RefDes. You can see the reference designator appended to the part name in the Structure Browser.
d. Click to complete the operation.
e. Continue assigning reference designators to non-unique connectors and terminals.
3. Click Interface and then, in the ECAD group, click Import Ecad.
4. Locate the netlist (.ecad file) and click Open.
5. Use the ECAD Information Browser to make and verify connections.
Components: Components listed in the Component List are those that are listed in the netlist. The Device is the unique reference designator that distinguishes each component (a connector or terminal) from other physically identical components in the same netlist.
Devices in the Not Found list are present in the netlist but absent from the harness assembly in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling. They must be recognized (listed under Found) before becoming valid. Select a device from the Not Found list and use the various commands to load components. Alternatively, you can click Select Part to map a device to a part that you loaded outside of the ECAD Information Browser.
Valid: You can make the connections listed here because the proper devices are present in both the netlist and the harness assembly in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling. To make the connections and automatically route wires according to the netlist, select one or more connections from the list and click Connect Selected, or click Connect All.
Missing: Connections listed here exist in the netlist but are absent from the harness assembly in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling. Load the needed components in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling and click UPDATE in the Components tab.
Existing: Connections listed here were already successfully made.
Not in list: Connections listed here exist in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling but are absent from the netlist.
When updating in the Components tab, select an item in the Component List before clicking UPDATE. If a duplicate component is detected, the Replace existing cables? dialog box opens. Click Yes to overwrite the existing cabling component and click No to retain the existing cabling component and add the selected item as a new component. A new SYSID is assigned to each new cabling component.
6. Click OK.
7. Route the connections through a channel.
a. Click Channel and then, in the Wire group, click Existing cable. The Existing cable dialog box opens.
b. Click Update at the top of the dialog box so that Creo Elements/Direct Cabling may properly compute the shortest path calculations.
c. Click Select All.
d. Click to complete the operation.
8. Click Interface and then, in the ECAD group, click Show Status to return to the ECAD Information Browser at any time.
to complete the operation.
Import Ecad.
Existing cable. The Existing cable dialog box opens.
Show Status to return to the ECAD Information Browser at any time.