Harness Builder Library Compatibility

Arthur Graf

• April 20, 2018 15:03

I am generating my first formboards in E3.Cable 2016 (Small Project, ver. 17.20.0.0) using Harness Builder  (2017.0.0.0).  I have created my own library of components for my project in an attempt to keep things clean going forward.  When trying to generate BOMs, Wire Tables, and other items in Harness Builder I get the following warning in the message pane:

"W - The selected active library is not a Harness Builder library.
Harness Builder for E3.series will continue to function, but unknown results may occur.
Proper operation requires switching libraries."

A couple questions:

- Is there a way to make my custom library compatible with Harness Builder so that I can guarantee that everything will work properly? (e.g., is there a list of particular components/symbols that Harness Builder looks for to verify it is working with a compatible library?)  Or am I required to switch libraries, perhaps just for the process of generating these tables?

- I've reviewing if I should upgrade to the latest versions of E3.Cable and Harness Builder... will this give me any advantages right off the bat?  If not, I want to wait since I am under the gun to get this first set of drawings out and I don't want to add any extra layers of potential complication, unless there is certain benefit.

Thanks, all.

Art Graf

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  Arthur Graf

  • April 20, 2018 16:38

  FYI, I read up on the latest version of Harness Builder and saw some key benefits for our situation.  So now I am running 

  - E3.Cable 2016 (SP, 17.20.0.0)

  - Harness Builder SP1 (2017.10.0.0) along with the associated 17.10 SP1 Harness Builder Library

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  Arthur Graf

  • April 20, 2018 17:49

  I keep discovering things as I go here...

  I have discovered that by switching back and forth between our library and the Zuken provided Harness Builder Library, wire colors are changing in my schematics which is reflecting into my formboard BOM and Wire Table.  This is suggesting that I really want to use just one database or else I will be constantly trying to keep my library in sync with the Zuken provided library.

  Due to this, I am going to focus my previous question to the following:

  - How can I make my library compatible with Harness Builder so that I can guarantee that everything will work properly? (e.g., is there a list of particular components/symbols that Harness Builder looks for to verify it is working with a compatible library?)  

  Thanks for your input.

   

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  Arthur Graf

  • April 21, 2018 01:54

  I put in a ZGS ticket and talked this through with Bob L.  He was a big help.  Here's what we did to iron this out.

  - I ran two scripts to add attributes and update text types in my library in order that HB would work with my library.  We had my library open in E3 (E3 db closed) and ran both *.vbs scripts found in the "Scripts" folder under the HB install folder.  (These errored out, so we then tried the *.vbs.cmd versions and they worked... perhaps something related to 32 vs. 64 bit... I don't recall.)  This was successful.

  - In db editor, I opened all of the symbols under the "SPLICE" and "TABLE SYMBOLS" folders in the HB library as though I was going to edit them.  I left them open and saved a *.e3s file containing them.  Next I opened my library and saved all the parts back to my library.

  These steps allowed me to run the BOM generation, Wire Table generation, and Splice info generation options under Harness Builder.

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