A wire harness cable assembly can make life easier in many different ways. Innovative but simple it’s something that is commonly used in the transportation industry, including automobiles, buses, trucks and planes. Wire harnesses and cable assemblies often frequently feature in construction machinery, industrial equipment, and white goods too. This flexible and easy to adapt design can be tailored to the situation in which it is required and has some key benefits that make it a very popular option.
Defining wire harnesses and cable assemblies
A wire harness or cable assembly is a systematic and integrated arrangement of cables within an insulating material that is created to transmit electric power. The cables that are required to transmit that electric power are bound together, whether that is with electrical tape, cable lacing, cable ties, a combination of these or other components. The point of using the wire harness is to create an installation that is ready to put in place by making it simpler to connect to larger components.
What’s the production process?
The design will be created based on the equipment that the wire harness is going to be installed in. Several pre-production processes go into creating wire harnesses, including crimping the terminals on both sides of the wire and overmolding cable harnesses and cable assemblies. Wires need to be twisted and overmolded and then the wire harness will need to be put together before it can be used. The wire harness also needs to be tested to ensure that it has electrical functionality and this can usually be completed using a designated test board.
What are the benefits?
Given the wide usage of wire harnesses it’s clear that they offer advantages, whether that is the speedy assembly of white goods or in the construction sector. Two of the major benefits that wire harnesses can offer are:
- Cutting down usual installation times. Because all the wires and cables that are required for one specific situation have been integrated into a single piece this can help to create some significant savings when it comes to installation time. Rather than running all the wires individually, all that needs to happen to complete the installation is to drop the wire harness into place.
- Increasing security. One of the biggest advantages of bringing all the cables into a single harness is increasing the safety and security surrounding the transmission of electricity. The wires are constructed in a non-flexible bundle, which reduces the risk of an electrical short and electrical fire risks are also minimised as the wires are in a flame-retardant sleeve. Also, factors such as moisture, vibrations and abrasions are much less likely to make an impact thanks to the more secure design inside the wire harness.
Wire harnesses and cable assemblies are widely used for good reason. Not only do they offer more security and safety when it comes to design but they also make installation easier too.
