How do I CAD wires?

[swoodude94]

Please, I need help CADing wires because I do not know how.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by swoodude94

Please, I need help CADing wires because I do not know how.

What software are you using? I know Solidworks has an electrical module and Creo has built in stuff for doing wires. Not sure about Inventor.

[Ty Tremblay]

If you don't have to, don't. Only CAD what you need.

[dirtbikerxz]

If you are using inventor, I used this tutorial a while back to learn

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

If you don't have to, don't. Only CAD what you need.

Sometimes (generally at 2 AM) you just want to do unnecessary stuff to make your renders more beautiful .

[asid61]

115 tried doing wires in Solidworks for a couple years. It was extremely time consuming and wonky to get the program set up to do it using the wire-maker deal Solidworks has, and ultimately didn't help us anyway.
Your efforts are best spent somewhere else. Anywhere else.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by asid61

Your efforts are best spent somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Remembering to leave room for electronics is important. Actually CADding the writes themselves isn't. But if you really want to and you're using SolidWorks, you can create a custom structural member profile. After you do that, you can basically play connect the dots with a spline and the structural members tool will create the wires pretty easily.

Happy CADding! (But seriously, I'd find something else to spend your time on.)

[dirtbikerxz]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

If you don't have to, don't. Only CAD what you need.

Originally Posted by asid61

Your efforts are best spent somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

Happy CADding! (But seriously, I'd find something else to spend your time on.)

But.... beautiful renders....

In all seriousness though, ya CADing wires really isn't important (especially not during the hectic time that build season is). While I do mess around with CADing wires once in a while, its generally after build season when I have a bit more down time.

[MrForbes]

If you ever get a chance to see a Holy Cows robot in person, check out the wiring. The ones I've seen, the wires look like a CAD model. Just beautiful!

[Munchskull]

Trick questions, you don't. Closest thing that would be worth your effort is CADing tie down points.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

If you ever get a chance to see a Holy Cows robot in person, check out the wiring. The ones I've seen, the wires look like a CAD model. Just beautiful!

Here's a chance.

[cadandcookies]

I feel the need to offer a little bit of a counterpoint to everyone saying to not do wiring in CAD.

I believe that is worth trying to do at least once, preferably in the offseason.

Yes, it's a trap, but it's a trap for a lesson worth learning.

[cpapplefamily]

Draw a circle on the xy plain. Then draw a line from the center of the circle on the z plain zig zaging through space. Now loft the circle along the line.

[Joe G.]

Another (admittedly debatable) counterpoint:

Do it...but don't use the fancy, tricky to learn, time consuming spline based routing environment that Inventor and Solidworks provides. We're looking for fast, dirty, and easy here...if it works for wiring the real thing, it should work for CADding it, right?

Don't even try to be that realistic. Equation curves? Splines? 3D sketches? Too much time! Stick to basic sweeps off of 2d sketches, and even then, only straight lines and arcs. That'll cover most everything. Funky bit where this doesn't work too well, like a wire looping from a PDB port down to flat with the bellypan? Don't worry about it, it was small and probably insignificant. We're after the big things.

Still, it seems like a lot of time and effort. So find ways to make it easier. Lots of wires taking similar paths? Model them all together on a single sketch packed in tightly and systematically, or maybe just as a single tube. Go out of your way to have as many wires in that path as you can, it'll save you that much more time, right? Spending lots of time finding models of all your connectors? Work to standardize, maybe even replacing bunches of little connectors with options that can be approximated as one big block. Trouble squeezing wires through a small space? Make it bigger or adjust your routing, it was probably going to be tricky in real life anyways. Losing track of where wires are going to/from? CAD lets you colorize things with a click of a button, maybe develop some kind of labeling system based on that. Can't set up your work planes quite right to get a wire to run through space the way you want? Just build it along pre-existing structural members instead. Still running out of time? Just say that some wires go through a tube piece -- no one will ever know they aren't actually modeled, right?

What you're left with is an approximation, which may not resemble the way you currently wire at all. Extremely straight lines, with a lot of wires taking the same path. Very little floating in free space. Lots hidden by structural members. Multiple connectors replace with one...

...hey, this is starting to sound pretty great, isn't it?

Of course, you've still got to follow through on the actual fabrication. But that can be a lot easier with a picture in front of you of how it's all supposed to go.

Being lazy about your real-life wiring leaves you with lousy wiring. Being lazy about your CAD wiring can accidentally give you great results in real life.

Of course, even this method is still near the bottom of the list of "productive ways to spend CAD time." This is only helpful if everything else is basically all set.

[Dwight_2]

Originally Posted by swoodude94

Please, I need help CADing wires because I do not know how.

I don't know what you're using it for or what program you using but if you find out I would like to know, Robots would look much better in CAD

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by swoodude94

Please, I need help CADing wires because I do not know how.

2338 uses the Autodesk Harness Environment extensively, and it's hugely beneficial. The tutorials in the help menus are very helpful. I strongly recommend to any team with the manpower to dedicate to harness CAD, do it. Knowing what the electrical will look like, and knowing what fits where before you put it in the robot makes life a million times easier.