Overmolded cables in Cable & Harness

[Brendan.Thorpe]

What is the best practice for creating overmolded cables in Inventor Cable & Harness environment? In my case, these cables are purchased already overmolded and may terminate in a power plug, sealed electro-mechanical component, connector, etc. It seems I will have to create the part and place a number of pins hidden within the part for the other end of the cable/wires to connect. This both feels clunky and does not transfer well to a nailboard view. 

I'm really only interested in demonstrating where to land the flying leads on the other end of the cable...

I appreciate any insight/ideas.

[mcgyvr]

Cable/Harness leaves A LOT to be desired though as its not used by enough to justify new features/functionality over the years..

You basically have a cable assembly and one end is already connectorized/overmolded with flying leads/stubs out the other side right?

Got a picture or something..

[Brendan.Thorpe]

I know there's a lot to be desired.. I'm just hoping someone has a better solution before I implement what I consider a very clunky solution..

For example, we use a power cable like this:

I need to demonstrate where these leads are landed after it passes through the cord grip into the enclosure. At the moment the only way I can figure to do this is create pin locations hidden within the overmolded connector to connect the other end of the wires...

[mcgyvr]

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@brendan.thorpe wrote:

I need to demonstrate where these leads are landed after it passes through the cord grip into the enclosure. At the moment the only way I can figure to do this is create pin locations hidden within the overmolded connector to connect the other end of the wires...

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Well.. Sounds like a plan.. Thats actually what it is in real life... 

I'd just model the plug.. Extrude a hole in the end and throw the pins down in the bottom of that hole.. make it deep enough so your segment,ends all hide down in there nicely..

I might whip one up and see how it works myself doing that.. Should be just fine.. Not really clunky.. Its how it really is.. 

[mcgyvr]

Quickly but yes.. Its simple.. Maybe make a point a bit recessed in the plug hole to act as a point for the segment to keep it in there and be done..

[Brendan.Thorpe]

While that's true that it's how it actually is.. it's not part of the process that I need to demonstrate. 

Maybe I'm just being too picky, but here's a power supply with an overmolded cable/flying leads. When I pull it into a nailboard/idw, it's shown in a way that's going to be very confusing on a manufacturing drawing. I can do some manual edits on the drawing and add notes to clear it up.. but then I have to do that for every single overmolded component I use (which is quite a few and quite often). Just hoping for a better "best practice" before I move forward doing them this way..

As a side note, I'm currently in 2015 - so if there's anything new with this in 2017 I'm not familiar with it, but I could move this to 2017 if it's worth it.

[mcgyvr]

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@brendan.thorpe wrote:

As a side note, I'm currently in 2015 - so if there's anything new with this in 2017 I'm not familiar with it, but I could move this to 2017 if it's worth it.

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Wouldn't matter if you had Inventor 2008 or even earlier NOTHING has changed.. 

A single pin right at the entry of the cable would work too and avoid your "recessed" look/confusion in the nailboard..

[Brendan.Thorpe]

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@mcgyvr wrote:

Wouldn't matter if you had Inventor 2008 or even earlier NOTHING has changed.. 

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I guess that REALLY answers my question.. bummer. 

Thanks for the help. 

[ADSKDJW4]

Hello @Brendan.Thorpe,

I have looked over the thread and agree with mcgyvr's comments about the cable and harness environment lacking this functionality. The only thing I can suggest is to post this request in the Inventor Ideas Forum to be considered for future release. The product managers there do monitor these requests and I would like to see these types of issues at least presented to them showing these challenges.

Regards,

Don