Cables Workbench

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Introduction

The Cables Workbench is a toolset for modeling electrical installations in architectural design projects. It is made to help run cables inside buildings or other objects and to build models of cables with the possibility of making single wire connections. It is an external workbench.

This toolset can be used to create electrical boxes or other ready to use electrical elements (the element list will hopefully be expanded in the future). These elements can be connected with fully parametric cables of different profiles, number of wires and thicknesses. There are a few predefined cable profiles here, but there is also possibility to create own non standard profiles with a simple csv file.

Models built with this workbench allow easy repositioning of elements without breaking connections. Cables can adjust their shape to new positions. However, this feature is not perfect yet.

The workbench aims to be compatible with BIM Workbench but it can be used for purposes other than architectural designs. It is planned in the future to make the workbench also more suitable for modeling pcb connections (any help in creating, for example, a set of ready-made connectors is very welcome).

Example of wall mounted boxes and cable
Animated version here

Example of three-core flat cable:
Multimaterial cable shape and its base wire, profile and subwires.

Installation

This workbench can be installed from Addon Manager. See also Installing more workbenches for manual installation.

Tools

Cable tools are divided into few groups depending on their purpose.

Wire manipulation tools

WireFlex: Creates a new WireFlex object stretched between two or more selected vertexes|objects

Add Vertex to WireFlex: Creates additional vertex on a selected WireFlex edge.

Delete Vertex from WireFlex: Deletes selected WireFlex vertex.

Attach WireFlex Vertex: Attaches selected WireFlex vertex to external vertex|object.

Remove WireFlex Vertex Attachment: Removes selected WireFlex vertex attachment from external vertex|object.

Tools for making cables and other ready-made elements

Cable Profile: Adds a new cable profile to the current document.

Cable: Adds a new cable based on selected wire and profile.

Cable Box: Adds a new parametric cable box.

Cable Connector: Adds a new parametric universal cable connector.

Cable Light Point: Adds a new parametric universal light point for cable.

Cable Materials: Adds a default set of multimaterials to the current document.

Support tools

Support Point: Adds a universal support point.

Support Line: Adds a universal support line.

External tools

Toggle grid: Changes the visibility of the grid.

Notes

This workbench is currently at the alpha stage. You can expect some bugs which can make your model broken. Some properties of models can change in the future and break models created with current version. Wiki pages related to this workbench can also be significantly changed in the future. Any comments and new ideas are very welcome. Please put your comments and reports through the channels specified in References.

Basic Workflow Description

Create endpoints for cables like: Cable Box or Cable Light Point and arrange them in a 3D space.
Create base wires connecting created endpoints with WireFlex and arrange them in a 3D space with the help of Support Lines or Support Points.
Create Cable Profiles suitable for the project.
Create Cables based on existing base wires and profiles.
Color the cables with the predefined or customized Cable Materials.
Finally (and optionally) connect chosen single cable wires using Cable Connectors.

Tutorials and Examples

Example FreeCAD documents with cables:

Examples shipped with the source code

Example animated images:

References

Source code on GitHub: https://github.com/sargo-devel/Cables
FreeCAD Forum: https://forum.freecad.org/viewtopic.php?t=94090
Report bugs: Please report bugs here