Integrate Wire Harnessing into SOLIDWORKS CAD Designs
Integrating your wire harness design into your 3D assemblies can be time-consuming and troublesome but Enterprise Harness helps alleviate the work required to do so. With its lightweight 3D environment, you can quickly design a harness around your 3D assemblies with minimal input. With its integration into SOLIDWORKS, your harness designs will always be kept in sync with your assembly changes.
Anyone can route wires through the 3D model – no prior 3D CAD experience
is required.
Update Mechanical Changes
Changes to the CAD model can be updated with the click of a button in
SOLIDWORKS.
Update Electrical Changes
Changes to the electrical scheme can be applied quickly by reloading the
from/to list.
Connector and Clip Libraries
Quickly generate libraries of frequently used connectors and clips with a
simple registration process.
Associative Connection to
SOLIDWORKS
SOLIDWORKS assemblies are automatically mapped to Enterprise Harness,
using the existing model as the basis for the harness routing. Finished
harnesses automatically populate into the 3D SOLIDWORKS model.
Large Assembly Compatibility
With a lightweight representation of the 3D model, harnesses can be routed
through enormous assemblies without performance degradation.
Fully Detailed Harnesses
Design and document all the elements of your harness, including splices,
connectors, sheaths, clips, ties, and backshells.
Compatibility with SOLIDWORKS
Electrical
SOLIDWORKS Electrical can easily be configured to quickly generate from/to
reports that will drive harness creation.
Automated From/To List Routing
From/to lists can be read into the software and wire connections between
connectors are automatically applied.
HOW CAN HAWK RIDGE SYSTEMS HELP?
Hawk Ridge Systems is the only reseller in North America offering Enterprise Harness, and our team can provide rich expertise to help you be successful with your harness designs. For new users, we offer a comprehensive Flight Plan package, including training, initial library creation, and support through your first project.
We helped a manufacturer of satellites with routing their harnesses through the 3D design. As well as getting appropriate documentation to manufacture the harnesses, the 3D model was used as a training tool for the implementers to route the harnesses correctly.
We helped a manufacturer of heavy industrial equipment used Enterprise Harness to route a complex harness with several hundred wires, which was proving challenging in their previous design system.
We worked with a consumer electronics company to help route harness information from SOLIDWORKS Electrical in 3D, allowing the appropriate space requirements within the housing to be mapped out.
SERVICES
MORE THAN JUST A PROVIDER
The Hawk Ridge team is here to help you succeed. From software implementation to mentoring and consulting, we offer a full range of professional services to dig in and help solve your biggest design challenges.
TRAINING
IMPROVE PERFORMANCE THROUGH TAILORED LEARNING
We offer training pathways for every schedule and learning style including online, in-person, and on-demand content. Whether you learn best in a classroom or would rather sit on your couch with a coffee in hand, there's a training method for you.
We have the sharpest, friendliest support team in the industry, hands down. Whether you need help troubleshooting a software issue or want to dig into a complex challenge or best practices with an expert, we are here for you – and we love a good challenge.
Whether you are looking for on-demand training, access to the latest software releases, exclusive resources and offers, or just needing expert support – there's a subscription option for you.
Enterprise Harness runs in a separate application window and doesn’t
require a SOLIDWORKS license for the user building the 3D harness.
However, it maintains associative connections to the SOLIDWORKS model so
that the harness can be built in parallel to the main mechanical hardware
design making it so that updates to either the mechanical or the
electrical systems can easily be handled.
How is Enterprise Harness licensed?
Enterprise Harness is available both as a standalone license locked to a
specific user’s computer, or as a network license shared among design team
members at a slightly higher price. It is typically sold as a perpetual
license with an annual subscription fee that includes technical support
and product upgrades.
How does Enterprise Harness compare
to SOLIDWORKS Routing?
SOLIDWORKS Routing, which is part of SOLIDWORKS Premium, is a tool used to
route a variety of infrastructure systems within the SOLIDWORKS CAD
environment – piping, tubing, point-to-point wiring, and branched
harnesses. However, many who try SOLIDWORKS Routing for branched harnesses
and cables report two main challenges: that the 3D CAD engine behind
SOLIDWORKS can struggle with the complexity of the wires in a typical
harness, and users need a strong understanding of mechanical CAD.
Enterprise Harness addresses both problems, by performing the modeling
tasks in a dedicated harnessing environment with a lighter memory
footprint, that doesn’t require any prior 3D CAD knowledge.
What inputs are needed to build my
harness?
Designing a harness in 3D requires inputs from two angles: the spatial
organization of the connectors the harness needs to connect and a summary
of the electrical connections that need to be made. In general, the 3D
model that harness needs to be designed for would be provided as a
SOLIDWORKS file and can be captured with a single-click in the SOLIDWORKS
interface. The electrical connections are supplied as a from/to list as a
.CSV file. This could be a report saved from a schematic tool like
SOLIDWORKS Electrical, or an Excel file created from scratch.
What outputs can Enterprise Harness
produce?
Enterprise Harness will produce two key outputs. The first is a 3D model
of the completed harness, created as a native SOLIDWORKS model within the
original SOLIDWORKS file. The second is an exchange file that captures the
details of the harness to be represented as a 2D drawing. This drawing
would be created in Enterprise Harness’ sister software, Enterprise
Layout.
Do I need to be a mechanical
designer skilled in CAD to run Enterprise Harness?
Enterprise Harness has specifically been designed so that no prior 3D CAD
experience is required. It has simple controls and direct manipulation
tools to get exactly the paths and connections you want. Harness design is
often tackled by designers from both electrical and mechanical
backgrounds, so it’s critical that the design tool allows all types of
users to complete the task.
What happens if my design changes?
Changes to the electrical system can be captured by reimporting the
from/to list and letting the design update. Changes to the mechanical
layout can easily be captured by exchanging the updated model to the
Enterprise Harness software and adjusting the wire routes accordingly.
Why should I model harnesses in 3D?
Modelling harnesses in 3D lets you easily create 2D documentation for
manufacturing, get accurate lengths of wires, and ensures adequate space
and paths are provided in the hardware design to accommodate the wires.
Additionally, being able to visually see the wires in the 3D model can
have huge benefits for other design collaborators, for sharing visuals
with customers, and for the manufacturing floor to visualize what is
needed.
What is the best way to get started
with the Enterprise Harness software?
We recommend a specific set of steps to get your organization up and
running with Enterprise Harness and modeling harnesses in 3D. After
installing the software, our Flight Plan service will walk you through
training on the standard workflows in the software. We'll then help you
build an initial library, then work through the process of creating your
first harnessing project.