Using Routing applications > Routing Electrical > Formboard

Formboard

Formboard allows Routing Electrical users to create a manufacturing drawing for Routing Electrical harnesses.

A formboard model is a flattened representation of a 3D electrical model of a cable or wiring harness. An electrical model appears in a formboard as if you took it out of 3D space, placed it onto a 2D plane, and pulled until it becomes straight.

Customer Defaults

Formboard has been added to the Routing customer defaults. The defaults for creating and editing formboard drawings are located under Routing→Formboard in the Customer Defaults dialog box.

Layout Options

These default control options are for the layout of a formboard drawing during creation and editing.

Option	Description
Main Run	Specifies the path in the harness that should be considered the top level, from which all geometry branches. Three options: Longest (default) — the Main Run consists of the longest path; or a manually selected pair of Routing Control Points (RCPs) defining the start and end of the Main Run.
Branches	Defines options for laying out harness branches, affecting the angles of branches with respect to their parent branch (or the Main Run). Angle options: As Designed (the 3D angle between child branch segments and the parent segment — often zero due to tangency, in which case the angle is defined between the end of the branch and the vector formed by the RCPs of the branch segment); Standard Angles (a defined list of angles applied at each branch level: first for branches off the main run, second for branches off those branches, etc.). A Straight/Angled option controls whether branches lay out straight (similar to Formboard V1 behavior, where the longest path attached to a parent branch is considered part of the parent and forms a straight line with it) or angled per the angle options — it is assumed a path ends at any RCP where more than two segments attach.
Length Rounding	Rounds off lengths of segments, overstocks, and wires in the formboard drawing, since 3D harness lengths do not necessarily match the tolerances needed for manufacturing.

Requirements for fully-connected geometry

The harnesses selected for creating a formboard must form a fully-connected set of geometry, otherwise they cannot be flattened. Selected harnesses are considered fully-connected if they do not have disjoint paths or geometry, either with themselves or with other selected harnesses. An error alert displays if the system finds disjoint path or geometry. Use the Show Disjoint Geometry dialog box to get information about groups of geometry from the selected harnesses that are not fully connected to each other.

A harness that is not fully connected with itself cannot be flattened (e.g., two cables in a harness not connected to each other) — error: "Selected harness is not fully connected."
You can select more than one harness to flatten at a time, but all selected harnesses must be fully connected together.
A connector referenced by a harness (in the Component List Navigator) but with no routed connection going to it also triggers an error when flattening.

Unloaded components

All wired components must be fully loaded into your NX session, with their ports included, for Routing to generate the formboard layout. Any wired component left in an unloaded state causes NX to issue: "The 3D harness part file is not valid. The failing part is: [harness name] Unable To Load Part." You must fully load any unloaded components to proceed with the formboard layout. Once the formboard drawing is created, saved, and closed, you can reopen it in a partially loaded state to annotate it in Drafting.

Formboard Tools (Formboard V2)

Tool	Description
Create Formboard Drawing	Creates a new formboard drawing.
Formboard Layout	Defines layout of the flattened geometry.
Update Formboard	Updates the formboard to match the latest data in the 3D harness.
Orient Branch	Rotates any branch in the formboard assembly about a branch point.
Shape Segment	Converts formboard segments into different curve types (lines, splines, radial bends).
Rotate Component	Rotates any formboard component about a port axis.

Where do I find it?


Application	Routing Electrical + Routing Harness
Ribbon bar	Home tab→Formboard group

How do I

Rotate a formboard component
Assign a CSYS to a component to orient it on a formboard