Wiring harness design in CATIA V5 - 3D modeling Week 2 Challenge

Wire Harness Basics

A wire harness or cable assembly is an assembly of wires or cables that transmits signals or electrical power.

• The wire or cable is frequently bound together with wire ties, lacing, sleeves, tape conduit or a number of other options including a combination of the above.
• A harness provides advantages over loose wires and cables by offering decreased installation time and allows for standardization.
• Wires often have terminals attached which can then be assembled into keyed housings for error proofing and connection to other parts of the final assembly.
• Harness assembly is typically done manually due to the many different processes involved.
• Refer to Thermtrol wire harness design guidelines for more information.

Wire harness design is often overlooked in the product development.

• This can result in incomplete drawings and obstacles in the manufacturing process.
• Early partnership with Thermtrol can help guide the design by avoiding many last minute changes.
• OEM Tooling and material lead times can be very long – advanced planning is important.

Harnessing can be broken down into several areas:

• Leaded wire
• Frequently used in point to point wiring
• Typically made on automated equipment
• Low complexity
• Minimal labor
• Good quality
• Additional savings opportunities for customer with bundling the leads into a harness

Wire Harness or Cable Assembly

• Usually includes terminals and housings along with other components
• This can be made via a mix of manual and automated operations
• Often this has a higher labor content and need for the higher quality controls developed by Thermtrol which includes 100% testing
• Wire Harnesses are made up of individual wires where as Cable Assemblies are made with a multi conductor jacketed cable

Cutting/ Stripping/ Crimping

• A key aspect of a high quality harness is the terminal crimp
• Crimping is a method of attaching a terminal or contact end to an electrical conductor
• Essential to control for maintaining good electrical and mechanical characteristics
• Use of OEM components and tooling contribute to a high quality consistent connection
• Thermtrol goes well beyond simply checking crimp height, width and pull test by use of a full terminal verification which includes a cross section analysis of the crimp

• Connector & Housing Type : Housing for Female Terminals

• Mating Pin Diameter : 1.59 mm [ .063 in ]

• Connector System : Wire-to-Wire

• Number of Positions : 8

• Centerline (Pitch) : 9.12 mm [ .359 in ]

2.Tyco 174357-2

• Create midpoint
• create Connector connection point
• create Connector connection axis system
• create cavity connection point
• create cavity connection axis system
• Switch to Electric part design and define part as connector
• Define Connector connection point and cavity connection point

3. Tyco 85229-1 :

• Create midpoint
• create cavity connection point
• create cavity connection axis system and orientation should be same as in connector
• Switch to Electric part design and define part as Mounting Equipment
• Define cavity connection point.

Elctric Assembly Design

• Import Connector and cavity / mounting clip.
• Select Defing Eelectric connection
• select cavity and then connector.