Simple to complex, large to small —
we’ve got you covered.

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With over 25 years of serving manufacturers of all sizes covering a wide range of industries, Edian Elec. can solve your wiring harness and custom electrical assembly needs.

  • Flexible manufacturing facilities with the ability to handle both high production programs and short run orders.
  • Quick turn-around time on our Taiwan-base short run lines to fulfill prototype, samples to support program development and production launches.
  • Engineering support through all phases of design and engineering.

Introduction to Wire Harnesses

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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 Edian 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 Edian 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.

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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

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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 Edian which includes 100% testing
  • Wire Harnesses are made up of individual wires where as Cable Assemblies are made with a multi conductor jacketed cable

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Cutting/ Stripping/ Crimping

Edian 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

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

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Wire Harness and Cable Assembly Design Guidelines

Wire or cable details

  • Length, including the tolerances needed in your application
  • Wire color(s)
  • AWG (clearly note if you are using a mix of wire gages)
  • Properties
  • Stranding/ wire count
    • Insulation type
    • Necessary Agency Rating and requirements (UL, CSA, USCAR etc.)
    • Breakdown voltage
    • Temperature requirements
    • Copper wire or Tin Copper
    • Any unique requirements specific to the assembly

Termination Details

  • Type of termination
    • Terminal
    • Strip and retain
    • Tinning
  • Connector housing part number
  • Terminal part numbers
    • Confirm specified housing and terminals work for identified wire type
    • Validate component operating temperature meets or exceeds requirements
  • Pinout of wiring (clearly noting location of pin 1 and wire colors if used)
  • Length requirements of branches between the connector and wire end

Harness Finishing Requirements

  • Concerns for abrasion
  • Labeling
  • Ties, taping, straps, lacing, sleeves, or conduit
  • Heat shrink (single or dual wall)
  • Addition of a sleeve
  • Braiding
  • Shielding
  • Twisting of wires
  • Molding

Quality Considerations

  • Use polarized connections
  • Including terminal retainers into your design can make it more robust
  • Confirm sufficient room in the application for wire bundles to run without interfering with other components
  • Validate wires are long enough, yet not an excessive length
  • Large bundles need to be long enough to accommodate any bend radius

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