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Computerized custom designs
Often the design, prototyping and installation of the harness is
left to a late stage in the process of developing a new platform,
which adds to the challenge of timely harness design and making
an efficient equipment fit. Larger systems can have 200 or more
individual harnesses. In order to speed up the design, specialized
CAD software is being developed which can reduce design time by
up to 90%. One such PC based design system has been developed by
Tyco Electronics Corporation. Called Harnware it contains a library
of more than 200 intelligent harness drawing shapes and catalogues
more than sixty thousand wiring harness products.
Once the designer has made decisions about wire size, routing,
connector selection, shielding requirements and operating environment,
Harnware will use this information to select the right sized components
to protect the harness and its environment. Shapes representing
harnessing products are dragged and dropped into the drawing,
automatically snapping and gluing together. Dimensions and connector
references are entered by clicking a shape and typing in the relevant
information. The system automatically traces on screen the route
of each wire in the point-to-point wire list through the harness
geometry, calculates wire lengths, determines the best positioning
of mixed-diameter wires in each harness leg and outputs bundle
diameters. |
