Splice Wants to Make Cable Harness Design as Easy as Possible
New browser-based tool gives you a graphical way to quickly and neatly connect things to other things.
Computer-aided design startup Splice has launched a browser-based tool that makes it easier to connect things to other things — by allowing you to design your own cable harnesses, connectors, and even multi-core cables.
"Splice is a web-based harness configurator that enables simple graphical design and documentation of cable assemblies," the company explains of its eponymous creation. "Design complete cable harnesses with our drag-and-drop interface. Place connectors, route wires and cables, assign signals, and generate documentation. Create a custom connector when a part isn't in our library. Design the connector outline and add pins to match your part. Leverage our template library to use common outlines and layouts. Define multi-core cables for your harness designs. Specify conductor properties, insulation, and jacket materials."
As the company says, the tool is split into three core design flows. The first is the "harness builder," which provides an SVG canvas into which parts from the Splice library can be inserted and then wired together. There's smart wire routing, the ability to generate a bill of materials (BOM), and export options including diagrams and engineering drawings.
Where a desired connector type isn't featured in the built-in parts library, the second flow can be used: the "connector creator." This, as you'd expect, lets you design a connector's outline, shell, and housing, add numbered pins, and then use it in the harness builder — with a library of templates included to get you started. Finally, the cable creator lets you choose from a range of multi-core cables, tweaking their conductors, insulation, and jackets to find exactly what you need.
At the time of writing, the service included predefined parts from JST, Molex, Samtec, Tensility International, and TE Connectivity, with promises that more will follow in the near future. The platform includes fuzzy search and filtering options to surface the parts you need, and designs are handled with version control to allow easy rollback to earlier revisions.
Splice is available on the official website now, with a tutorial to get you started.
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