Editor's Pick: Electrical and Fluid CAD System Configured for Industries

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

A man of few words, Deet Hood had a Yankee accent you could slice with a knife and shrapnel scars earned on Iwo Jima. He and I were tasked with restoring an Army surplus truck from the Korean War vintage. “Harness and cables rotted,” he sighed. “We got to run some wires.” We had no map, so we sketched one on a blackboard. Must have had a dozen wires to run and connect. Such a pain. Imagine trying to do that job with the mass of wires in today’s cars.

Wiring is a big part of what Zuken does, and they’ve just come out with a new version of their E³.series software for electrical wiring, control systems, and fluid (hydraulic/pneumatic) engineering that sounds like it can take a lot of pain out of your day-to-day workflow. Actually, I should say versions: What Zuken has done is taken its years of experience working with major players in the aerospace, automotive, machinery, power, railway, and systems engineering worlds and used it to develop what it calls E³.series Industry Editions.

The deal here is that every industry has its standards and methods, so an E³.series Industry Edition offers the functionality central to its industry. In other words, it talks the talk of your industry. Say you do the electrical engineering on cars. The basic functions of your E³.series operating environment support the Vehicle Electric Container (VEC) standard STEP AP212/KBL, which defines the exchange format of a vehicle wire harness between OEMs and suppliers.

The motif of industry-specific Esperanto, so to speak, runs through the other Industry Editions. So, the Power Edition observes IEC 81346 standards, the Railway Edition supports standards like EN 15380 parts I, II, and III based upon the IEC 81-346, and so on as you’d expect throughout the software line.

But that’s not where it ends. Each Industry Edition offers a toolset geared toward your work. The Transportation Edition has things like automated connector pin terminal handling and automatic connector pin terminal selection, cavity seal selection, and environmental terminal selection. The Machinery Edition provides automated design functionality, multi-user collaboration, MCAD integration capabilities, and the ability to manage entire product ranges within a single design project. This, of course, is in addition to being a full-function electro-technical, wiring and wiring harness, pneumatic, and hydraulic design system.

You can learn more about Zuken’s E³.series Industry Editions from the links in today’s Pick of the Week write-up. Make sure to hit the link to access the series of short videos on the capabilities of the E³.series (registration free).

Thanks, Pal. — Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Read today's pick of the week write-up.

This is sponsored content. Click here to see how it works.