Top Features in SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2022

Each year, DS seeks to outdo itself with hundreds of sweeping enhancements to its diverse and ever-expanding portfolio of engineering, manufacturing and design solutions. SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2022, in particular, received quite a few significant enhancements this year, making documenting your electromechanical systems more streamlined than ever before.

With this article, we are highlighting some of what we consider to be the most impactful updates for those considering whether it’d make sense to upgrade sooner rather than later.

3D Harness Routing: Performance Improvements

One of the first things we noticed about SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2022 was how much faster it was than its predecessors. The difference was most apparent when routing harnesses using the SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D add-in for SOLIDWORKS. In our experience, the new version automatically imported connection information from my schematics and produced connector fanouts 30% faster than it had in this past. This is a staggering improvement that will benefit anyone looking to leverage their SOLIDWORKS assemblies for harness planning and fabrication.

SOLIDWORKS Harness Routing

SOLIDWORKS Routing: New Manufacture Flatten Options

This year, some big additions were made to the manufacture flatten utility in SOLIDWORKS Routing, which SOLIDWORKS Electrical leans on for the 3D representation of harness elements.

SOLIDWORKS Flatten Route

Create Flatten Route with Lines Only

There is now an easily overlooked option on the Manufacture Flatten tool which automatically removes any curved or spline segments from the flattened route. This addition significantly reduces the time it takes to prepare the harness for documentation in a drawing, as previously you would need to touch each segment to verify no artifacts were remaining from the routed configuration.

Edit Flattened Route Contextual Menu

We are an absolute sucker for delighters like this one. A brand new contextual menu is now available in 2022 when preparing a flattened route that reduces the amount of mouse travel required when using commands. When you select a segment to edit, the menu immediately appears beside your mouse cursor with relevant commands, allowing you to enter and accept parameters far more quickly than ever before. I was personally able to prepare my entire harness without ever touching a sidebar menu or ribbon.

SOLIDWORKS Flatten Route Menu

Better Integration of Tools

SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2022 has always differentiated itself in the market with a continued commitment to eliminating barriers to tools you commonly need to access. This means fewer popup menus, less mouse travel and overall less time fighting with the UI.

Two standout examples of this in the 2022 release are the formal integration of the Electrical Content Portal and the Electrical Component Wizard into the core interface of SOLIDWORKS and SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic. Both tools now have dedicated commands and sub-commands within the software, negating the need for external programs to detail your system components.

SOLIDWORKS Electrical Integration

With all these enhancements, along with the modernization of the GUI, SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2022 is shaping up to be a milestone release. If you already own or are considering SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D, this is definitely not the version you want to sleep on.

Learn more about SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2022

Visit our What’s New in SOLIDWORKS 2022 website to discover more enhancements and take an online SOLIDWORKS Electrical training course.