1: Protective coverings - Catia only gives you the option to create tape or corrugated tube, what about PVC tube and other special coverings? Also the corrugated tube option means that you have to create a part for each corrugated tube diameter, unlike the tape option where Catia automatically updates the tape on the bundles if the diameter changes. I have the issue where you may have 20 corrugated tube coverings on the harness in Catia, I import the wire information from Zuken, all the bundle diameters change but the corrugated tube dose not. You then have to replace all of the tubes with the correct diameter to match the new bundle diameter.   

2: How to add tape over a clip or plastic part - We use tape on types of clips on the harness, why can't you add tape to the bundle and then adjust it over the clip as well?

1: Protective coverings - Catia only gives you the option to create tape or corrugated tube, what about PVC tube and other special coverings? Also the corrugated tube option means that you have to create a part for each corrugated tube diameter, unlike the tape option where Catia automatically updates the tape on the bundles if the diameter changes. I have the issue where you may have 20 corrugated tube coverings on the harness in Catia, I import the wire information from Zuken, all the bundle diameters change but the corrugated tube dose not. You then have to replace all of the tubes with the correct diameter to match the new bundle diameter.   

3: Importing of wire information - Sometimes when I import the wire information into my harness, I use the auto wire route function then update the harness, however sometimes some of the bundle segments don't update to the correct diameter but some do. If I delete the ones that don't and re create them then route the wires again it seems to work. Any ideas as to why?  

4: External links - When we design the harnesses we have other Cat parts and products within our harness product as we need to use these as reference. We then use points and curves etc from these parts to create our harness route. When we delete these parts out of the harness product and then save our harness we have lots of issues with links etc to these parts. How can we get around this?

5: Clip/ retainer issues - we sometimes have problems with supports, clips, retainers. We route the harness to the clip and then to a junction or connector. All bundle segments and components are linked. However sometimes when I move the clip it's then not linked to the bundle and there are ghost points, planes etc appear in no show. Any idea as to why?

6: Protective coverings - Once I have created some coverings and stored them in a catalogue, I then insert the covering onto a harness branch; however when it appears in the tree Catia automatically gives it a date etc within the part name. Why is this and how can I stop Catia from doing this?

7: Protective coverings - Why can't I add a covering that goes over two separate bundle segments which are linked together. Example, I have a connector then a bundle segment then a clip then another bundle segment. I want to put a protective covering over bundle segment one, then the clip then bundle segment two as both bundle segments is split at the centre of the clip. When I try to add the covering it will only let me put it over one segment at a time which then means I need to use two separate covers but in reality it would be just one.

8: Harness flattening - I have had lots of problems with this. Basically a lot of the time certain branches and components don't flatten into the same plane. I have to extract the harness data first into a new product and then flatten it. Also if my harness contains wire information then it just won't flatten. Any ideas as to why?

9: Internal Splices - I have some issues with these, basically if I import wire information from Zuken into my Catia harness model, I link all components and splices and use the auto wire route. This all works and the harness bundle diameters update ok but when you select the splice wires in the tree it shows them going from a connector, past the splice to the nearest junction point and then back on itself to the splice. For some reason Catia seems to link the splice to the nearest junction point on the harness even though the splice isn't placed at that point. Any help on splices would be great.

10: How to check for unlinked bundles and components- any idea how I can do this, I tried using the filter but can't seem to get it working?

11: Electrical catalogues - I have some catalogues and cat parts which are stored in there on a shared drive. If I move either the catalogue or the parts or both to a different drive is there any quick way of re mapping/ linking them?

12: linking electrical devices - I have a problem when auto linking harness connectors with electrical devices. I select the connect option then select the harness connector and then the device, but it normally moves the device to the harness connector but should be the other way around.

13: Copying harnesses - how can you copy a harness, for example I have a driver door harness which is used on the rhs of the vehicle, I want to copy it to the lhs for the passenger door and then remove some of the branches on the passenger door so that it's different to the driver door harness?

14: Other: back shells, terminals and filler plugs. Do you have any information on these and how I can create them?

15: Also is we are currently using V5 R17 I was wondering if there are any changes to R18 regarding electrical workbenches functionality? If so is it possible to tell me what they are? Unfortunately we are not having much luck using the support at the moment and some of the people we speak to don't know much about the electrical side of Catia. Any help would be really appreciated, is there also anyway of getting a hold of some user documents for R18 so I can see what new features etc there are? Thanks again for your help and sorry about all the questions