Route Wires

Routing wires generate a 3D representation of the wire path within the electrical installation. The routing paths and connection points facilitate the routing process.

Segregation manages the rules applied to the wire paths.

Route Wires routes only the wires in an electrical project.

To access Route Wires:

  • SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D menu: Route Wires .
  • Menu: Tools > SOLIDWORKS Electrical > Route Wires .

When you run Route Wires, the left dockable panel changes to display various options. Several of these parameters are saved in the SOLIDWORKS Electrical file and are specific to the file. The others are saved in the registry and are common to all SOLIDWORKS Electrical files.

Routing Analysis

Show errors. Displays a report at the end of the routing that shows all routing errors. Click Help on a line of the report for information about the error.

Select route type

  • SOLIDWORKS Route. Routes the wires as managed by SOLIDWORKS, accounting for wire diameters.
  • 3DSketch Route. Routes the wires as a 3D sketch. This mode is quicker and better for temporary routings.

Select renderer type

  • Use splines. Uses splines (curves) to ensure optimal rendering of the wire routing . When you use splines in the routing path, you can manually add points on it to improve the routing.
  • Use lines. Generates a wire routing with straight lines. Add Tangency inserts curves at the end of the straight lines.

Components to route

  • All components. Launches routing across all components in the assembly.
    • Route active location only. Limits the routing of wires to the top-level assembly only.
      This supports creating SOLIDWORKS Route and 3DSketchRoute route types.
      • If the wires at the top-level active location have their origin or destination components in another location or sublocations of the electrical project, only those wires get routed along with the wires belonging to the components of the active top-level location.
      • If the wires at the top-level active location have their origin or destination components in another location that is out of scope (for example, the active location is a sublocation, and a wire is at the top location), the wire is not routed.
  • Selected components. Launches routing across a subsection of the components. Select the components in the graphics area. Only the wires connected to the selected components are routed.

Routing parameters

The first parameter specifies the distance between two routing paths.

The second parameter specifies the distance between a connection point and routing path.

The third parameter specifies the distance between two wires.

The graph lets you quickly view connections between components. There are two buttons available: one for display, and the other for deleting the graph.