Epec's Blog | Electronics Manufacturing Solutions

Overmolded cable assemblies are widely known for their superior performance, attractive cosmetics, and the fact that they can be customized for nearly any application. But overmolded cables also require a sizable investment in hard tooling well before the first cables are ever produced.

Those of us who make our livings managing supply chain, the time of the year between Halloween and New Year’s Eve is always on the tense side. Known as the “Peak Season”, it seems to start earlier and earlier the more people turn to e-commerce.

At the conclusion of our webinar, Reducing Risk in Your Custom Cable Assembly - we had several questions submitted to our presenter, Steven J. Goodman, User Interface & Cable Assembly Product Manager at Epec. We have compiled these questions into a readable format on our blog.

When I think of the song, “Through the Years” by Kenny Rogers from 1981 (played at my high school graduation in 1982), I wouldn’t have imagined I would still be in the printed circuit board (PCB) industry. Yes, 1982! Wow. There are several nostalgic “things” about the time spent in the industry that still remind me of my hometown, family, friends, the U.S., my first real job doing something I had never heard of, hoping to make ends meet.

When it comes to selecting the appropriate cable type for a multi-conductor , there seems to be an endless combination of wire sizes, jacket materials, conductor arrangements, and shielding methodologies.

Portable devices are everywhere. When thinking about the top portable devices that we use daily, smartphones, tablets, and laptops will dominate the list. Yet, there are numerous applications that rely on portable devices. Manufacturers of medical devices, military devices and even kid's toys rely on holder and mounting designs to secure batteries in portable devices. How the batteries are secured plays an important factor. These applications can experience a range of extremes such as shocks, vibrations, drops, and temperature fluctuations.

When sourcing custom cable assemblies, customers seek the highest quality design and manufacturing capabilities at the lowest costs. Due to these factors, many customers source their custom cable assembly builds from offshore manufacturers. These cable assemblies may consist of ordinary data cables, low voltage wire harnesses, high-resolution video cables, or something completely custom.

When power applications and equipment with custom battery packs, it's ideal to place batteries in storage when not in use for extended periods of time. This practice will prevent batteries from becoming overcharged in equipment and degrading.

It is not often we build an electronic device without any sort of prototyping, but it can happen given the nature of the project and the deadlines being met. If a customer needs a Human-Machine Interface (HMI) to hit the floor in 2 months, the time to develop and build a prototype is strained as both the customer and design engineers will want to test it and provide feedback.

Electronic devices requiring custom cable assemblies place our customers into a unique situation. They require a custom cable to ensure that their devices can operate for the desired application, but also require these cables to be manufactured in a timely and economic fashion.