Creating a Flat Harness Model Page 1 of 2

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Concept: Creating a Flat Harness Model

Understanding Harness Mode
Harness Manufacturing mode enables you to create a flattened version of the 3-D wire harness. The
flattened harness is typically used for nail-board style drawings. The harness is created as a type of
manufacturing file, but it is saved with a *.asm file extension.

Harness Manufacturing mode generates two windows:

1. The main window, which contains the flattened harness segments.

2. A sub window, which contains the 3-D wire harness, extracted from the model.

As the wire segments to be flattened are specified in the sub window, the resulting flattened segments
appear in the main window. The flattened harness model maintains associativity with the original 3-D wire
harness. So if wire lengths are modified in the cabling assembly, they update in the flattened model.

Creating a Harness Manufacturing Model

There are four steps when creating a harness manufacturing model:

1. Create a new harness manufacturing model by clicking New from the Quick Access toolbar and
selecting Manufacturing as the Type and Harness as the Sub-type. You can then provide a name,
name1.asm, for example.

2. Specify the harness model to flatten.

3. Specify the desired harness model simplified representation to use.

4. Specify or accept the name of the flat harness, name2.asm, for example. The flattened harness is
created as an assembly rather than a part model because this enables the connector models to be
assembled into the flat harness.

Figure 1 – Harness Mode Main Window

Window Management
There are two windows used when creating a flat harness model and it is important to manage the windows
properly. Try to keep both the main window and sub window visible while working, because useful
information may be found in both windows at the same time.

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Creating a Flat Harness Model Page 2 of 2

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Figure 2 – Minimized Sub Window

To prevent the sub window from falling behind the main window, you can minimize the sub window. When
you minimize the sub window an icon displays in the upper-left corner of the graphics window in the main
window. You can click this icon to restore the sub window as needed.

Figure 3 — Harness Mode Sub Window

Configuration Files
You can configure the template model for the flat harness using the following config.pro options:

• harn_start_model_dir — Enables you to specify the directory location of the harness template model.

• template_harnesspart — Enables you to specify the name of the default template model to use for the
flat harness.

Best Practices
Create a FRONT view orientation in the flattened harness model. This is typically the view that is used in a
drawing.

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