Hello everyone,

I’m working on a wiring harness project in SolidWorks Electrical, and I’ve run into a challenge regarding heat shrink tubing. I need them to appear correctly in the manufacturing drawing (flattened harness) and BOM with accurate lengths, but splitting the harness causes unwanted radii in the flattened view. Here’s a detailed description of the issue and my current approach:

Problem:

• Using the standard Insulation tool creates one continuous sleeve along the harness. This is fine in 3D, but in the BOM it counts as a single long component, which doesn’t reflect the separate pieces I need.
• If I split the harness into segments to place separate sleeves, the 3D harness becomes distorted, and the flattened harness (manufacturing drawing) shows undesirable curves and radii.
• I want multiple separate heat shrink sleeves (e.g., 6 mm each) at specific intervals without breaking the harness geometry.

What I’ve tried:

• Using multiple Route Covering operations on separate segments — works for BOM length but requires splitting the harness, which ruins the flattened drawing.
• Manually placing separate components along the harness — seems promising but I want to confirm the best practice to ensure lengths are accurate in BOM and reflected properly in the manufacturing drawing.

Questions:

• Is there a recommended workflow for placing heat shrink sleeves in SolidWorks Electrical that achieves all of the above?
• Should I always use point-based placement for sleeves instead of covering the spline?

Thanks in advance for any guidance or best practices!