Electromechanical

Products today incorporate more advanced electronics, in a more complex and smaller mechanical package than ever before.  To design these products successfully requires tight integration and collaboration among ECAD and MCAD development teams.  Significant enhancements were made to Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 in the areas of routed systems, Pro/ECAD, and integration with InterComm.

Enhancements covered in this Tutorial:

• Ribbon Cabling
• ECAD-MCAD Collaboration

Highlights of some other enhancements:

• Cabling Design
  • Improved sub-harness control
  • Automated checking for network continuity
  • Support for External Simplified Reps (ESR)
  • Improved stability for locations with missing references
  • Autorouting shields
  
  
• Pro/ECAD
  • Improved hole performance
  • Incremental updates

Ribbon Cabling

This new functionality accurately captures the mechanical and electrical aspects required for virtual design of ribbon cabling. Ribbon cables can be defined and routed with tools to split, fold and bend the cable. Logical schematic information is supported from Routed Systems Designer.  This is a significant improvement over workarounds using sheetmetal or sweeps.

1. Set Working Directory to CABLING.

2. File > Open vcr.asm.

3. View Manager , click All tab, activate Ribbon-Start.

4. Applications > Cabling from the main menubar.

5. Verify Datum Points are displayed - including their tags.

6. Select Harness > Ribbon to activate Work Harness.
   - Spool with a 15 conductor ribbon cable was pre-defined
   

7. Route > Ribbons > Create to define the new cable.

8. Enter RIBBON-1 for the name.

9. Select 15_Cond > Done Sel to use all conductors.

10. Done Sel from CABLE SEL menu.

11. View , select RIBBON-START.

Instead of using the Search Tool to select the Entry Ports, you can also just enable the display of Coordinate Systems .

12. Define the Entry Port to start routing:
    1. Click Search Tool or (CTRL+F)
    2. Look in: start typing "VCR" and Pro/E will auto-complete field
    3. Enter RIBBON for the Name Value to search
       
       
13. Click Find Now button.
14. Two matches will be found for the same connector in (2) locations.
    
    Note pre-highlighting, and select this one as the start:
    

Datum points have been named to indicate the type of route TO that location. You do not need to snap to them, just pick in their vicinity.

*use the Through option for routing to points labeled "free-#". There will be a single green-dot to denote each location, but each wire will have a centerline arranged in parallel to form ribbon.

15. View , select RIBBON.
16. Complete routing, using named Datum Points as guides:

• Free > Through, click near free-1
• Click near free-2
• Fold, click near fold-1
• Through, click near free-3
• Click near free-4
• Bend, click near bend-1, Enter 2.0 for radius
• Click near free-5

17. View , select RIBBON-END.
    
18. Select Entry Port option from the side menu to define termination.
    1. Use the Search Tool  as above in Step 12 (or display CSYS)
    2. Find and Select the other RIBBON CSYS
19. Done/Return or MMB to complete route
    
    

20. Switch to Thick Cable  style.
    

Congratulations, the Ribbon Cable is complete!

You have completed this Exercise, continue to Next Page.

ECAD-MCAD Collaboration

ECAD Collaboration will be an optional module for Pro/ENGINEER, and requires InterComm Expert 5.2 patch 1 and InterComm EDAcompare 2.2.

A typical design process involves many iterations between the mechanical and electrical designers.  Each company may handle the specifics differently, but all face challenges of keeping both disciplines in sync and avoiding re-work.

In this exercise, we will touch on a few basic steps within a typical scenario...

Phase 1

MCAD creates a board outline, including critical components and areas constrained by the physical design.  An IDF export captures this baseline, and is shared with the ECAD design team.  Pro/ENGINEER now has the ability to directly export to .eda.

Phase 2

The ECAD team continues work on the detailed electrical design.  InterComm EDAconduit can be used to export a richer neutral version of the design versus IDF.  EDAcompare will help determine the incremental differences between iterations, and can generate an XML file for use with the Validation Manager.  Changes are prepared to share with MCAD team via XML.

Phase 3

Incremental XML data file with changes is shared with MCAD team. This is where our hands-on exercise begins...

Incremental Import of XML from EDA comparison

1. Set Working Directory to ECAD.
2. File > Open dback_3_081006.asm.
   - This represents the baseline, showing critical ECAD and MCAD components
3. View Manager  > All tab > Pcb-Wip
   - Now viewing the BOTTOM side of PCB assy, with transparent board
4. Applications > ECAD Collaboration
   A new toolset will appear in the dashboard area:

5. Start the Validation Manager Emulator  from the dashboard.
6. Click Load File, and open .\XML\critical_to_final.xml.
   
7. Scroll to the bottom of the Transactions List.
8. Select last two components: Y600, Y700.
   1. Click Current to display proposed changes (to-be) 
   2. Click Highlight to identify objects with selection color
   3. Click Zoom to fly to the selected objects in order
9. Select All Changes
   1. Select last entry...
   2. Scroll to the top, and SHIFT select first entry.
   3. Click Accept
   4. Click Close button
10. Select OK from the ECAD Collaboration dashboard to commit changes.
11. Select OK from Changes Notification alert - 992 changes imported!
    1. Optionally use File > Save a Copy... ECAD EDA (*.eda) to establish next baseline.

An MCAD library of detailed parts that correspond to various electrical symbols and packages is typically established for a more accurate representation.

Phase 4

The MCAD team continues working in parallel, and makes sure there are no interferences between the populated PCB and surrounding enclosure. The MCAD user wouldn't have access to ECAD authoring tools, but can leverage InterComm Expert to help facilitate and communicate a change.

Collaboration Session and Cross-Highlighting

This is being simulated on the same system, but in reality could be a synchronous design session between dispersed team members.

1. Mechanical design change in Pro/ENGINEER; move a component.
   1. View  > PCB-ZOOM1
   2. Open the Model Tree Settings file ecad_ref_des.cfg to add a column for Ref Des
   3. Select part MECH3990010N04 (M300)
      
      
   4. RMB > Edit
      • x : .22 to .30
      • y : .23 to .22
   5. Regenerate (CTRL+G)
2. Start InterComm Expert 5.2; arrange windows side-by-side.
   (or use Tutorial Launcher System Tray command - ECAD Collaboration)
   1. File > Open Design... browse to ECAD\EDA\06-ecad-mcad-brd-final.eda
      This is the fully detailed design, including pin pads, routes, etc.
   2. Browse > Bottom View (U)
   3. Browse > Fill Shapes (F)
   4. Browse > Visibility > Expand Phy12
   5. Disable visibility for all but Ref Des and Package Boundary
   6. Apply > Done
   7. Query > Cross-Highlight  (make sure icon is enabled)
3. Back in Pro/ENGINEER...
1. Applications > ECAD Collaboration
2. From the dashboard options:
   • Output Control > Dynamic mode
     
   • if Send on Select is not checked, you can also use RMB to send on-demand.
      
3. Select the moved component from Step 1.
4. Object will highlight in white in InterComm
• Changed position will appear in RED
• To display crosshair, press 'S'

Phase 5

The ECAD team investigates and evaluates the proposed changes.  If implemented, generates a new XML file using EDAcompare.

Under the Utilities option on the ECAD Collaboration dashboard, there are commands to perform a comparision against EDA file, and generate incremental XML. The following two images show these web-based tools, use the caption button to expand to full view.

EDAcompare:

Validation Manager Results:

4. Select Close button from ECAD Collaboration dashboard.
5. File > Erase Current > Select All  > OK.
6. Exit InterComm Expert.

You have completed the Electromechanical Tutorial.