- Wire Cutters– These are used to cut the wire to desired length and specifications of the design.
Electrical Wire Harness Design Basics, Steps, Common Mistakes, Advice
By Tina / 2019年7月3日
Electrical Wire Harness Design Basics, Steps, Common Mistakes, Advice
Electrical wire harness designing is possibly one of the significant steps which allow any electrical device to work, especially helping a vehicle to work the way it is meant to. In fact, the success of an application and its relationship with wires and the overall flow of current is all anchored to how well a wiring harness is designed.
What is a wire harness?
A set Wire harness is the assembly of wires or electrical cables to transmit signals or electric power. The wires are bound by a durable material such as nylon tie in the assembly process. It’s the wire harness that ensures the reliability of effective energy and information transmission in an application.
So there’s plenty more we can tell you about wire harnesses, but in the article, we’re going to give you a basic overview, the steps to guide you on design and construction.
Where Wire Harness Assemblies Are Used
Wire harness assemblies are used in a multitude of different environments. The motor industry, aerospace, military applications, consumer products, and even for home projects. Many of these applications will contain multiple wire assembly harness installations and many are integral to enable the machine, vehicle or product to work effectively.
When Wire Harness Assemblies Should Be Installed
Wire harness assemblies are used in a multitude of projects that contain and rely on a variety of wires and cables that function to complete different tasks. The challenge for most cable installations is that the cables and wires themselves are difficult to organize and keep straight and neat. A wire harness assembly can keep things better organized and help the project and installation install more easily and for the whole unit to run more smoothly.
However, wire harness designing needs to go through certain basic steps and processes. It’s only through this the effective functioning of the application can be ensured. So let me guide you with some electrical wire harness design basics.
Electric Wire Harness Design Focus
As we all know design is mostly created to solve a specific purpose or outcome, to ensure the right output is generated. Likewise, an electrical wire harness is designed to ensure the right wiring structure to assist a device in functioning the way it is expected to.
Wire harnesses specifically focus on two significant elements such as geometric and electrical. Identifying these two are extremely important to conduct and execute an effective wire harness design.
Geometrical focus tries to identify the specific space in which the wire harness design needs to be fixed. This will help identify if the harness design needs to cater to a larger or smaller network of electrical wiring.
The second focus is on identifying the potential electrical shortages that could happen with the design. For this purpose, the design will focus on the specific electrical guidelines that have to be met along with the design. This will ensure the wires are protected both from internal and external damages from electrical issues.
However, as an all cases, wire harness design will focus mainly on the reliability, function, and efficiency of the product, rather than the art. Also conveniently you have two option for a wire harness design.
Wiring Desgin LED display
Electric Wire Harness Design Options
There is plenty of electric wire harness design software applications in the market which have automated the designing process. But harness designing can also be manually designed with proper understanding and skill. There’s are also plenty of organizations that can custom design wire harnesses to meet complicated environments and specifications.
So if you’re here to find out how to design your own wiring harness by yourself, let me fill you in on the details, to fulfill your requirements why not come and talk to us about your designs.
Wiring Design System
Cutting and stripping machine
- Wire Strippers– These are used to strip off parts of insulation cable when necessary.
Stripping Cable jacket machine
- Crimping Plier/Ratcheting Crimpers– These are used for tightening the terminals to the stripped wires.
Half automatic crimping machine
- Wires and Cabling– These are needed to create the flow of signal/ power to the expected terminal
- Cable or Zip Ties– These help in bundling the wire harness neatly.
Cable zip ties
With these things ready, it’s only a matter of executing the wiring harness diagram. For this, you’ll need to create a wiring diagram that will guide you on measuring wires, cutting and stripping wires, binding the cables, etc.
In the next section, you’ll know what a wiring harness diagram is.
Designing a Wire Harness Diagram
A wire harness diagram is a physical layout of the connection you’re trying to create for the vehicle or any other intended application. A wiring harness diagram is different from a schematic diagram. It makes use of abstract symbols to represent the components of a connection.
Automotive Wiring Harness Diagrams
An ideal wiring harness diagram will have symbolized components, optimum positioning, splice positions, and wire colours. This will help differentiate the different points that need to go into the wiring process. The appearance of the diagram is a typical representation of how the wire bundling will ultimately look like.
In fact from the appearance of the diagram, you can decide how complicated or how pure your custom wire harness will be.
If you find it difficult to create a wiring diagram for your application, you can consult an expert for this purpose. Also, remember the success of an electric wire harness design will only depend on the wiring harness diagram. So it’s important to ensure the wiring harness diagram is accurately designed before execution.
Once the diagram is designed you can then start focusing on the process required to execute it with the above-mentioned things ready. So now let’s see the basic process for executing a wire harness diagram.
Basic Wiring Harness Design Process
The following are the basic three steps required to design a wiring harness with the things mentioned above.
Step One
With the diagram in hand, the required wires are cut as per the diagram. This is usually done using a special machine to be accurate on the numbers. However, you can also use a wire cutter for this purpose. Then after the wires are stripped exposing the core of the wire using a wire stripper. The core of the wire will be usually metallic in nature and is fitted into the connector housings, also known as crimping.
Step Two
The next thing to be done is clamping of the wires as specified by the diagram. You can make use of a crimping plier/ratcheting crimpers for this purpose. This is usually done on special workbench or pin board. After clamping the wire, the collections can be fastened with cable ties, zip ties or tapes and fitted into necessary cable components as per the diagram. The assembly of the design process is now complete and this can be directly fitted into the device of use.
Step Three
The final step is to test the functionality and efficiency of the wiring harness. This can be done with the help of a test board. Each of the primary wires can be tested individually or as a collection. If the test doesn’t give the expected output, there will be a need to realign the wire design or structuring until the expected output is given.
These days, all these steps are conducted in an automated manner. So, without some expertise, attempting to do it manually yourself means you might well make mistakes. So to avoid them, keep reading and find out what could go wrong.
Mistakes to Avoid in Electrical Wiring Harness Design
Sometimes the wire harness design might not work in the way you expect it to. This is mainly because the wire harnessing diagram is not appropriately designed. Apart from this, the following are a few other possible mistakes of electric wire harness design.
- Cutting the wires too short which then fails proper connections onthe entire cable harness.
- Failing to identify the right signal, workflows and other functional or analytical requirements of the intended connection.
- Not implementing the planned design as it is, or bringing amendments or adjustments to the design while executing.
- Failing to standardize the design according to accepted electrical or manufacturing standards. Although this may not cause a defect in the harness it may frequently cause errors leading to financial costs.
Finding the Right Wire Harness Assembly Partner for Your Project
It’s important to remember that this provides a very basic overview and understanding of how an electric wire and cable harness design is laid out and executed.
Some applications may require complex designs and approaches. So it’s always better to understand the nature of the design and then move forward with an expert harness designer and a manufacturer that can implement the whole project alongside you.
Here at QL-Custom, We specialize in wire harness assemblies for every kind of task out there. From custom products that meet your exact specifications through to a large selection of pre-made merchandise. We can help advise you the correct options for you, so get in touch now, we’ll be happy to help.