Hello, I have Solidworks Professional which does not include electrical routing. I am in the process of creating a diagram which includes wires in assembly. What is the best way to show wires without routing? I am planning to use a colored 3D sketch. Any help is appreciated.
Joe
Joe,
I would think that Sweeps would come in real handy, especially now with the 'circular profile' option built in.
I will try sweeps. 3D sketch isn't working how I planned right now.
You have to learn how to use 3D Sketching and understand which plane you are working in.
It takes a few times creating wires this way to get used to it.
Search YouTube for how-to.
A tip I've found for working with 3D sketches is to use the multiple view ports option in SolidWorks, you can move between the 4 views seamlessly and you don't have to worry as much about what plane you are working on.
It's totally tricky without the help of the software (electrical routing) - if you do this on a daily basic, I recommend to purchase the software
The routing should be done in the assembly where you can use all connectors as ref. for plane/axis/point then build your 3D sketch (spline) based on these ref. features (plane/axis/point)
For a simple representation of a few wires / cables it isn't that bad. It lacks the features such as showing the size of the wire/bundle correctly, but if he takes the time to look up a typical size of a wire it won't be that bad.
Also, it sounds like he would be ok just showing the sketch of the path instead of doing the full sweep...so it sounds like he doesn't need that much detail.
Agree! I sometimes found problem with swept feature for flat cable and needed to make some adjustment (sometimes it's almost impossible) to the 3D Sketch (spline) before getting the cable look right
In our philosophy, the engineer's time is much more expensive than the hardware/software if you plan to do it for a long term
Agreed there is always a trade off between time and $$. Showing the ROI on some things is a bit tricky though sometimes.
Use 3D sketches, draw straight lines for your approximate path then add fillets on the intersections. Once you have your path defined select one end RMB select chain or tangentcy and go to Tools-Spline Tools-Fit spline and you can sweep along this path for your wire.
Am I able to sweep in an assembly? I have my wires drawn and converted to splines. It seems sweep only works in a part. Can I export my 3D sketch to a part document?
Okay, I have a few lines down without sweeping just yet. Every once in awhile I will try and start a line and it will be on the origin plane. Is there a way to confirm a reference point?
Joe,
Don't forget that you can COPY sketches from one part to the next, or from an ASM to a PRT just by doing CTRL+C on the sketch in the featuremanager of the source PRT (or ASM) and CTRL+V in the receiving PRT.
Thank you, I was able to copy the sketch. I have attached the sketch to the original question. How to I sweep all of the lines? I can only seem to sweep one before the sketch closes.
Joe,
You can reuse the same sketch for a different feature.
If you look in the helpfiles you'll get the basic idea or on youtube you'll find many demonstrative video's.
Joe,
I could be doing it wrong because I have problems from time to time but I would use your sketch as a master sketch and then I would create a different part for each different wire. Then copying the master sketch into each part I choose one line to use for that wire and use convert in the sketch for the new part. It looks like you have some wires spliced which I haven't done yet but I would use multiple sweeps for that. If you want them all in one part I have included a model with two wires done. You can see from there how i did it. My way will get you a large number of planes but they can be turned on or off. There should be a way to create planes on the fly, or was that another program i used?
Edit: I just looked at your note again. You will need to create a different sweep for each disjointed wire. The sweep is not capable (to my knowledge) of doing several disjointed wires.
I played with the sweep feature and was able to do what Peter described. Without anything highlighted, I opened the sweep feature, clicked on the 3D sketch, a small window appeared, chose "Open Loop", and clicked the specific line. It was tedious, but it worked how I imagined it would from the start.
Sounds good, I have learned something new.
I'm glad. I've learned tons of things since joining this forum. It's crazy browsing some questions and seeing what people are trying to do, and how many people are willing to help.
Joe,
I would think that Sweeps would come in real handy, especially now with the 'circular profile' option built in.