4 design tools for configuring custom cable assemblies

By Warren Miller, contributing writer

At some point in your design, you will probably need to use some cables to connect different boards or subsystems together. Cables may also need harnesses and mating assemblies. The selection, creation, and configuration of cable assemblies — from simple to complex — can be accomplished with a wide variety of tools and libraries. Here is a quick review of some of the tools that you might find helpful for your next design:

RF Cable Designer from Fairview Microwave
Fairview Microwave’s new RF Cable Designer provides customers with a plethora of options for creating their own customized cable assemblies. Any and all assemblies are typically built and shipped the same day and include heat shrink at no additional cost to the customer. The tool is said to greatly decrease the time that it takes to create and order coax cable assemblies. The typical steps of sending an RFQ and then waiting for a delivery and price response are eliminated, further speeding delivery time.

HDC Cable Configurator from Weidmuller
The Weidmuller HDC Cable Configurator is an online tool designed to help customers build their own custom cable harness and mating assemblies. It simplifies the design process by assigning each component a product number, making a single assembly require only three product numbers to be complete. Customers can also name and save project designs for future reference, allowing them to obtain project details, pricing options, project renderings, and custom part numbers at any time.

Cable design tool from Pickering Test
Pickering’s cable design tool offers a variety of useful features for designers including a library of standard cable sets on which to base customized designs and cloud storage for potential and in-progress customizations. Customers can even create their own libraries and share them with other designers through cloud access. Every design has a corresponding PDF file detailing all of its specifications. The Pickering cable design tool is supported by most tablet operating systems. An extensive set of online tutorials — animation, video, and interactive — makes it easy to come up to speed on using the tool.

The Cable Creator starting screen. Image source: Pasternak.

The Cable Creator from Pasternak
The Pasternak Cable Creator tool allows customers to build their own assemblies using 1,300 connector types and 115 coaxial cables made by the company. It also provides customers with the option of selecting from the over 40,000 pre-existing cable assemblies in the company’s archives. The Cable Creator creates a unique product page for each customized design complete with part numbers, pricing, a bill-of-materials datasheet, and options for design specification. All designs are built and shipped the same day the order is placed.

“Our new and improved Cable Creator now provides the purchasing simplicity and convenience our customers have come to expect when placing their online orders,” said Steve Ellis , Interconnect Product Manager at Pasternack. “Engineers and buyers no longer have to wait for a quote for their custom assemblies. The new Cable Creator allows users to design, customize, receive pricing, check data and order their cables all from one easy-to-use web interface.”