Copying and reusing harness components

Cable and Harness offers the same copy commands used by Autodesk Inventor so you can create multiple occurrences of a harness assembly and place them within the same assembly. Cable and Harness secondary occurrences can be based on the original harness assembly ( primary occurrence ) or the copy ( secondary occurrence ).

Harness assemblies that are copied and placed within the assembly are dependent on the primary occurrence. Changes to the primary occurrence automatically update all associated secondary occurrences. These secondary occurrences can be constrained as a rigid body in the assembly, but cannot be edited. To reuse these occurrences and make them available for edits, you can use Make Adaptive. Adaptive occurrences can be edited in the Cable and Harness environment and will update to assembly changes.

The only way to get a nonadaptive occurrence of a harness assembly is to place a secondary occurrence.
Note: Placing a harness in a different assembly breaks the associativity with other instances.

What commands create secondary harness occurrences?

You can use any of the following commands to quickly create one or more occurrences of a harness assembly.

Note: A secondary occurrence created by the Pattern component command must be independent before you can use Make Adaptive. Right-click the pattern element and select Independent from the context menu to make it independent.

How are occurrences named and stored?

In the browser, the primary occurrence is listed with the harness assembly file name such as, DSubCable. Secondary occurrences are listed with the harness assembly file name and the occurrence number, for example DSubCable:2. The harness part is named the same as the harness assembly.

When a harness assembly occurrence is made adaptive, the occurrences can be customized with a new file name. By default, the harness assembly is named <top-level assembly file name>.Harness<incremental number>.iam. The harness part is named the same as the harness assembly.

By default, the new occurrences are stored in a folder along with the parent assembly, for example: Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor [version]\Assembly1\AIP\Cable & Harness\. You can also enter or browse to a different location to store the new files.

Note: When an occurrence is used in a configuration, the file location for harness objects is automatically defined. Each configuration is associated with a specific folder.

What occurrences can be made adaptive?

The Make Adaptive option is available for non-adaptive secondary occurrences of the harness assembly. The occurrence must be a harness assembly occurrence. The occurrence must also be nonadaptive in the active member. The occurrence has an adaptive column in the table and the value of this column in this member is nonadaptive.

What happens when a harness occurrence is made adaptive?

By default, a harness assembly is a primary occurrence , which is adaptive and can be edited in the Cable and Harness environment. When you copy and place a harness assembly, the copy is a secondary occurrence that is dependent on the original, is nonadaptive, and cannot be edited in the Cable and Harness environment. When you use the Make Adaptive command on a secondary occurrence, the harness assembly and harness part are essentially transitioned to a new adaptive, primary occurrence that is independent of the original and can be edited in the Cable and Harness environment. Renaming the new harness occurrence automatically renames the harness part.

Each assembly can have many primary occurrences as long since they are referring to different harness assembly files. For a specific harness assembly, however, it can be the primary occurrence in only one assembly.

How does Make Adaptive differ between the reuse and configuration workflows?

When Make Adaptive is used on a harness assembly in a configuration, the harness is copied, the secondary nonadaptive occurrence is replaced with an adaptive primary occurrence, and all custom constraints, even those outside the assembly are reconnected. When Make Adaptive is used for the reuse workflow the same thing occurs, with the exception of custom constraints. Custom constraints are suppressed rather than reconnected.