What Is An Electric Wire Harness, Steps For Wire Harness, Purpose

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What Is An Electric Wire Harness

Making wire harnesses involves a process. From the conceptual stage to the finished wire harness, design and assembly demand meticulous planning and a significant amount of manual labor. Wire harnesses are necessary in the modern world since they serve a specific purpose in integrating into a wider electronic network.

The Production of Wire Harnesses

Electrical wire bundles are known as “wire harnesses” and contain additional outside coverings on top of the separate coverings that each wire has. Although there are slight distinctions between them, the terms “wire harness” and “cable harness” are frequently used interchangeably. In this article, we’ll cover all you need to know about wire harnesses, including what they are, how they’re used, and how they’re made.

How do wire harnesses work?

Processed wires are grouped into wire harnesses and covered with a protective layer to prevent damage from the elements and other potential hazards. To further guard against damage to the individual wires, they may have a protective sheath around them commonly composed of thermoset or thermoplastic material.

Because they organize wires for simple integration into machinery and systems, these harnesses are crucial. Sometimes cable assemblies are mistaken for wire harnesses. While cable assemblies firmly bind several covered wires with a covering to provide robust protection suitable for more demanding conditions, wire harnesses often offer a bundle of cables and wires with some level of protection and keep them organized.

Despite the product names, wire harnesses and cable assemblies can contain both cables and wires. Several advantages of using wire harnesses include:

Grouping wires together saves space and makes it easier to customize for different application requirements
Extending the lifespan of cables and wires
Enhancing equipment security
A wide choice of sizes and lengths are available

What Purposes Do Wire Harnesses Serve?

There are far too many applications for wire harnesses to list here, however, the following are some noteworthy use cases:

Automotive: Vehicles employ wire harnesses for a variety of things, including information, signal, and electrical power transmission.
Airplane simulators: Wire harnesses are used in flight simulators to carry energy and data in compliance with a variety of performance criteria and strict spacing requirements.
Flat-panel televisions: Wire harnesses are used with flat screens to arrange the wires and reduce electromagnetic interference.
Heavy machinery: The majority of heavy machinery used in construction and numerous other sectors includes wire harnesses.
Tough computers.

Tough computers. Wire harnesses and cable assemblies are frequently employed in ruggedized computers that are utilized in demanding industrial or military situations to shield internal cables from debris, moisture, and other factors.

Wire harnesses are widely used in many different major industries, including appliances, construction, heavy and industrial equipment, electronics, military and defense, medical equipment, and many others. These examples only represent a small portion of the applicable use cases for wire harnesses.

How are Wire Harnesses Produced?

The production of wire harnesses can range from very simple to extremely complex. Beginning with the design phase, it is important to make sure the harness has all the specialized elements for the purpose for which it is intended. The cutting, stripping, and terminating of wires are typically the next steps.

A specialized device known as a crimp center is used to strip the wires, cut them to the proper length, and attach metal terminals to the ends of the wires. To allow the mating of male and female bundles of wire, the wires will then be put, if necessary, into a connector housing. Some wires will continue to be individually attached to the original equipment and outside of connectors.

Finally, an assembly board is used to bind the cables or wires with an exterior covering, directing proper breakouts and enabling the last electrical test. Due to the delicate nature of routing cables or wires through sleeves, manual assembly is still the most popular approach for creating wire harnesses. For wire harness assembly, manual procedures include:

Applying fabric tape in various places and quantities
Oftentimes, crimping terminals onto wires needs several crimping operations.
A sleeve is inserted into another.
Securing cables with cable ties, tape, or clamps

The manufacture of wire harnesses is a labor-intensive, challenging, and task-oriented procedure. Nevertheless, the production of wire harnesses and cable assemblies is expanding as a result of the rising demand for these parts. That’s because one of the most crucial electronic and electrical parts in the current world is the wire harness!

Step 1: Design

The wire harness provides power and conveys information in a streamlined, uniform manner, whether it is concealed behind a glove box in a car or within the rear panel of a washing machine. To effectively get a product onto the market, engineers working on electronic product research and development must regularly face and solve electrical problems.

Custom designs for each product’s electronic component and a step-by-step wire harness manufacturing process to finish the assembly are essential components of this challenge. At this point, engineers must also select harness components and make other user-specific decisions.

Step 2: Create a prototype

An engineer or product designer can use wire harness prototyping to get their hands on a working model of their finished product, if necessary. Before starting the first production run, they can test the harness in its intended use to ensure optimal performance.

Step 3: Production and assembly

Design parameters must be met and high-quality standards with low error rates must be upheld in the manufacture of wire harnesses. Surprisingly, the production of wire harnesses still relies heavily on physical assembly in this day and age as automated manufacturing spreads throughout the globe and into almost every industry.

The production of wire harnesses and cable assemblies must be done by hand although some automation can be included in the process because of the lengthy and detailed procedures required to complete the process. Even while creating a wire harness can be challenging and task-focused, hand production is still more affordable.

Wire harnesses and cable assemblies must each be specifically tailored for each application, which is another reason hand production is still the preferred mode of production. Wire harnesses are extremely specialized pieces made for specialized larger parts. They are required to handle specific challenges that are inherent in the entire process as well as geometric and electrical problems that arise during product manufacturing.

Geometrically speaking, wire harnesses are made to fit a particular area inside a more extensive network of electrical parts and wires. Additionally, wire harnesses must ground the wires and shield them from potential internal and external electrical damage caused by crossed wires, chemicals, or moisture.

Cutting Wire: Generally speaking, the first step in creating a wire harness is to ensure that the wires are properly measured and cut using a piece of wire-cutting equipment. Connecting & Stripping: The next step is stripping the wire ends so that the cores may be seen. Next, modules, connection housings, or terminals are attached using this technique.

Last but not least, the wires are assembled into a harness according to the design requirements using a workstation or assembly board.

Wires must be routed through sleeves and fabric tape must be applied manually during wire harness production in places like branch outs from wire strands. It is necessary to crimp terminals onto wires, and repeated crimping operations will be required when more than one wire must be connected to a single terminal. Additionally, any strands that need to be secured with tape, clamps, or cable ties are done so manually.

In the manufacture of wire harnesses, using automation and machines is not prohibited by hand production. Machines are used to crimp terminals or partially plug wires with fitted terminals into connector modules. Cutting machines are used to consistently cut wires to specific lengths. Both tools and soldering equipment are required to seal the ends of the wire.

to fulfill the design requirements. Wire ends and twisting tools are both available.

Step 4: testing

After production is complete, each wire harness is subjected to electrical safety testing to ensure it will withstand any requirements it may encounter in actual use. This process is essential for guaranteeing that the finished product operates completely dependably.

This was about “What Is An Electric Wire Harness“. I hope this article may help you all a lot. Thank you for reading.

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Chetan Shidling

Automotive | Technical Blogger | Engineer | Content Creator

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