Designers of routed systems face a different set of challenges from those of 3D modeling.

Multidiscipline design, where electrical, pneumatics and hydraulics interface with one another is often extremely complex and tedious to work with. On-screen, the schematic design can look busier than a map of downtown Manhattan, with hundreds of circuits snaking between termination points. Each connection must be well placed to ensure readability and present key information such as voltage, wattage or in the case of fluids, flow direction. As with 3D digital modeling, any change can ripple through the entire schematic design regardless of discipline, necessitating many other changes.

Until the release of Pro/ENGINEER Routed Systems Designer 8.0, Pro/ENGINEER designers faced another challenge: many were still using PTC’s legacy application for schematic design, Pro/DIAGRAM, because migrating up to Pro/ENGINEER Routed Systems Designer (RSD) meant having to manually re-draw old schematics.

The newest version of Pro/ENGINEER RSD now makes that migration as simple as saving the Pro/DIAGRAM file and re-opening it in Pro/ENGINEER RSD 8.0. Pro/ENGINEER RSD 8.0 automatically creates the symbol library in the catalog and retains all the graphical and logical connectivity of the original design, allowing the designer to continue driving downstream Pro/ENGINEER cabling and piping design.

“If there’s a central library that’s shared by several designers, Pro/ENGINEER RSD 8.0 checks the migrated catalog with the company’s standard central catalog and will provide a comparison and resolution tool to manage any catalog conflicts, allowing the designer to conform with company standards,” says Jim Barrett-Smith, product management director at PTC.

Barrett-Smith notes that the new version of Pro/ENGINEER RSD also maintains the graphical representation so the migration from Pro/Diagram is as seamless as possible. Plus, Pro/ENGINEER RSD can come as a standalone application, so it doesn’t require the schematic engineer to have any knowledge of Pro/ENGINEER, even though they are tightly integrated.

“This will help companies consolidate their applications,” Barrett-Smith says. “Pro/Diagram was a module of Pro/ENGINEER, so schematic engineers required a license of the base Pro/ENGINEER package, and a Pro/Diagram license. Maintenance-paying customers receive Pro/ENGINEER RSD Lite—a limited version of Pro/ENGINEER RSD—free of charge and that is all the schematic engineer needs.

Associativity is key. Pro/ENGINEER RSD is an essential tool today when many products employ combinations of piping and wiring. Take, for instance, an application in an automobile steering system which makes subtle changes to the level of power assist as the auto’s speed increases or decreases. Electrical sensors determine the speed, and hydraulic pumps and piping feed into the power steering controls.

For applications such as these, Pro/ENGINEER RSD 8.0 maintains linkages between the piping and wiring disciplines which can help in several ways. The designer can have an electrical view of the hydraulic pump on the wiring diagram and vice-versa—the same pump with the same part number, but a different representation—thus simplifying the connectivity on complex schematic. Because the pump is the same object, a change made in one discipline (wiring) will be reflected in the other discipline (hydraulic). For instance, a hydraulic pump might use a six-pin electrical connector for its sensor. But a change in the pump’s capacity will require a different sensor, a five-pin unit. Pro/ENGINEER RSD 8.0 will make that change automatically.

Termination Tables. Every connection has termination information at either end. Termination types range from simple wire crimps to waterproof rubber seals, and terminators come in a multitude of sizes, shapes, and styles. Manually selecting terminators can be tedious, since the designer has to go through lookup tables to find the correct unit and then apply termination to every port on every connector. A washing machine might have a hundred or more electrical wires; an airplane will have thousands. Placing these in a drawing can be a major waste of time, considering that it takes on average about 30 seconds to apply terminator information.

Pro/ENGINEER RSD 8.0 deals with this by allowing designers to set their termination rules for each type of terminator. Once set, Pro/ENGINEER RSD automatically scans the design and based on the user defined rules applies the terminator information to the relevant ports. In practice, it can apply terminator information to 150 pins in approximately one second, providing a significant saving in time and improving accuracy.

Consolidation improves efficiency. According to Barrett-Smith, Pro/ENGINEER RSD 8.0 now gives schematic designers a single, relatively simple tool that can handle even very complex applications. “Pro/ENGINEER RSD 8.0 continues to automate repetitive tasks, based on company design rules” he says. “Not only does it simplify the design process, but it also lets companies consolidate their schematic solutions to a single application, so they don’t have to deal with multiple tools, different training, and accelerating user proficiency.”

“These things are especially important today, when gaining efficiency can be a key to success in business.”