Wiring Help

[Anonymous]

It's probably easy but i'm coming up against a few hurdles when creating a some wiring in an assembly. I have three components, with two wires linking one to another via a third. I have authored the components and the wires protrude at the correct angle and give a suitable bend, but is there a way to define their length? Currently they are automatically 15mm long and they should be 50mm but I can't seem to change this in the properties.

Secondly, How do i effectively heat shrink them together? I have looked at segments but I don't want to have to route the segments, I want them to bend naturally with the fixed length. (As a side not, I can not seem to define the segments directions and they just join the connectors with a straight line. There is not fixing points on the harness, it is just supported due to the end constraints.

To be honest, what I think I need is a wiring tutorial but I can not seem to find one. The index just tells me the information I can glean from hovering my cursor over the different buttons in the wiring environment. Any help would be gretly appreciated..

Dave

[mcgyvr]

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@Anonymous wrote:

It's probably easy but i'm coming up against a few hurdles when creating a some wiring in an assembly. I have three components, with two wires linking one to another via a third. I have authored the components and the wires protrude at the correct angle and give a suitable bend, but is there a way to define their length? Currently they are automatically 15mm long and they should be 50mm but I can't seem to change this in the properties.

Secondly, How do i effectively heat shrink them together? I have looked at segments but I don't want to have to route the segments, I want them to bend naturally with the fixed length. (As a side not, I can not seem to define the segments directions and they just join the connectors with a straight line. There is not fixing points on the harness, it is just supported due to the end constraints.

To be honest, what I think I need is a wiring tutorial but I can not seem to find one. The index just tells me the information I can glean from hovering my cursor over the different buttons in the wiring environment. Any help would be gretly appreciated..

Dave

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The cable/harness environment leaves a LOT to be desired... It works great for typical harnesses but anything past that it really wasn't designed for.  start by googling "autodesk inventor cable harness tutorial" there are you tube videos and websites that should get you "more trained".

>>but is there a way to define their length?

Nope..only by routing them by adding points along a wire/segment. This is where my request for a "service loop" function in the cable/harness environment would help.. Of course why do you need an extra 35mm of wire..(service loop I guess)

>>Secondly, How do i effectively heat shrink them together?

Is the shrink tubing along the whole length of the harness..if so a segment is what I would use to simulate the tubing. 

Sounds like you need to learn how to add point and redefine them/move them.. This is done by right clicking along the segment/wire where you want a point and selecting add points.. you can then move or redefine those points to route the wires/segments as needed..

[Anonymous]

FYI the extra 35mm is due to the fact it is a standard component that is being added to an assembly. I have got to grips with some of it now, cheers. The point system seems a little cumbersome, fine if you are routing it through a harness but the components are 20 mm apart with a 50mm cable, it would be alot easier if you could use some kind of physics engine to see what would the wire would naturally do, but I guess it's all supply and demand. I definately will not be using this to do the wiring harness, which is a shame, if it was a little easier to use i'm sure it would take no time.

Dave

[Anonymous]

Oh, as a side point, as with the 3D sketch, what is the best way to define the points in relation to other objects? I found the same thing with the tube and pipe environment, I can add and move points, but I can't define the points using dimensions from current geometry, so some points I want on a component axis a certain distance from a surface, using x,y and z coordinate system seems to cumbersome (although I'm not advocating for it to be excluded).

Dave

[mcgyvr]

redefine is the option you want to place points a specific distance.. You can change the offset to whatever you want and place by that.

You can also include points in your parts that would be used for wiring too. It took me a few weeks of trial/error to be able to use cable/harness in a way that works for my applications.. Its really trial/error/this works/this doesn't,etc..

Not to mention you need to get away from "exact" placement like you do with cad models.. As in the real world you know for sure that a wire will never be repeatably placed x" from this and y" from that..

[Anonymous]

Ok, I will look into redefine, and although i do know wires will never be exactly x/y/z from a point, but as I do not believe there is a physics engine telling me how a wire would actually be placed, the "exact" placement is my best approximation of how it will fall. Alot of wires I am using have a harder sheath coming off the components so for an exact 20mm off the component, I know that the wire will fall perpendicular to the component face.

Oh, and there seems a limited number of wire/harness tutorials out there, most deal with importing wiring diagrams from electrical which for me is really not necessary, or shouldn't be. I have two 200mm wires coming out of a components to a connector, I just need something that is approximately right. More for show than anything but sometimes, you've got to do things just to impress the punters...

Dave