Editing a Harness After It Was Moved to A Different Assembly

[Fabian_Butkovich9RHGA]

Hello all, this is my first forum post here so I apologize in advance if I have missed any key forum guidelines.

I am unable to edit a harness assembly that was created in a top-level assembly, then later moved down to a sub- assembly. 

I can make the harness adaptive through iProperties, however when I attempt to edit the harness through the only assembly it exists in, inventor tells me that it it not adaptive in the current context.

Is there a way to fix this so I can still edit the harness? Or do I just have to take this as a lesson learned and start all over?

[CGBenner]

@Fabian_Butkovich9RHGA 

Hi Fabian, and welcome!

Generally speaking, changing the structure of any Routed System design is, at best, very difficult.  In most cases I would advise against it.  Since this is already moved, let's see if we can get it working again.

In your screenshot, is the arrow pointing at the harness itself, or the assembly that you moved it into?  Is the top level in this image the assembly it was originally created in?

[Fabian_Butkovich9RHGA]

@CGBenner Hi there thanks for your reply. The red arrow in my image is pointing towards the harness itself. The green arrow is the assembly in which the harness was originally created in (top level). At some point I realized I needed to move this harness to the assembly highlighted by the orange arrow, so I removed it from the top level and put it into the sub assembly. 

Being relatively new to Inventor (I've only been learning it for a couple of months), I wouldn't have known this is a bad idea to move a harness from one assembly to another. 

[CGBenner]

@Fabian_Butkovich9RHGA 

Great, thanks for the clarification.  Can you also describe what you did to move this, and what you tried to make it adaptive after the move?  This might help to develop a plan to reverse this (if we can).

[Fabian_Butkovich9RHGA]

Referencing my comments in my vault history, I believe I literally just right clicked on 60-001-01808-N when it used to exist in CFG_CHRG_BEACON and deleted it, then I created assembly 10CA-016-N and placed the harness back into that by selecting it from the AIP folder. When I performed this that's where I believe I inventor lost the context that it is a harness. 

[CGBenner]

@Fabian_Butkovich9RHGA 

That sounds exactly right.  Hmmm,... are you able to right click on the harness and choose Make Adaptive?  Does that option exist?

A little context, I worked with Tube and Pipe for years, but never Cable & Harness.... I'm hoping there are some similarities.  🙂

[Fabian_Butkovich9RHGA]

I am able to do that, however, if I try and give the harness the same name in the dialog, it won't let me proceed. Unfortunately, I need the harness name and part numbers to remain the same. 

[CGBenner · Accepted solution]

@Fabian_Butkovich9RHGA 

Sadly, once it has been moved or deleted, or if you were to copy and paste it, the only way to make the new instance adaptive is to change the file names.  This will create a new harness sub-assembly with all new components, except of course any standard Content Center parts like your connector, those should be re-used. 

Now,... if you do that (maybe rename it by simply adding a -1 at the end?), you could then save the assembly and check it into Vault (Vault Professional?), deleting the local copy as you do.  Then, go into Vault and use Vault Rename, to change the file names associated to the new harness back to what you had before.  As long as the older, original file (the one you moved in the first place) is either deleted or is also renamed first (this might be safer so you have a backup copy), you should be fine.  Maybe rename all of those as -OLD?  Then, back in Inventor, Open from Vault and check it all out and (if it all works out) you're back in business.  Crossing my fingers in case you try this.....

Of course,... the other option is to say forget it,... and delete the harness, start over and consider it a lesson learned the hard way. 😥

Good luck.

[Fabian_Butkovich9RHGA]

Sorry for the late reply. This was ultimately the method I ended up using and worked. I can now edit the harness in the new sub-assembly. Kind of makes me wonder if this is just the method which should be used to begin with when having to transfer an harness to a new assembly (vs rename or save as). I appreciate your help in guiding me to this solution. 

Fabian