Show HN: Splice – CAD for Cable Harnesses and Electrical Assemblies | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Splice – CAD for Cable Harnesses and Electrical Assemblies

splice-cad.com

89 pointsdjsdjs20 comments

I first posted Splice CAD as an in-browser tool for making cable harnesses.

Since then it’s grown in both features and scope — the direction is moving from “harness-only” toward a lightweight CAD for wiring and electrical assemblies. New functionality includes:

Editing Enhancements

- Full undo/redo to easily restore editor state

- Multi-select & group actions to move, delete, and add components

- Bulk connect tool to create straight-through, crossover, or custom wiring patterns quickly

- Multiple connections per pin allow for daisy chains, etc.

Documentation Additions

- Multi-page PDF configurator to add A2, A3, or A4 pages for engineering drawing downloads

- WireViz YAML export (generate WireViz diagrams directly: https://www.danielrojas.net/projects/wireviz)

Library and Component Additions

- Expanded beyond harnesses to include categories for more applications: connectors, cables, breakers, fuses, switches, motors, power supplies

- Magic MPN button in the Component Creator to auto-fill specs from part numbers

Try it out, no signup: https://splice-cad.com/#/harness

Docs & tutorials: https://splice-cad.com/#/tutorial

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This is awesome.

What’s your plan for pricing?

In my opinion: you should bundle this as an offline electron app that can save to the filesystem and get integrated into existing PLM. and/or sell a team plan that offers cloud design & library sync

… and partner with that YC company doing wire harness machines for a “buy now” button

Could work well as an Onshape App.

Thanks Chris!

I intend to keep the current functionality (50 harness/assembly designs per account) free. A collaboration feature is coming soon that will allow creating teams and sharing harnesses with specific accounts - we may charge here at some tier but this is TBD.

I was unaware of the YC company (https://www.loombotic.com/ I think) - thanks for pointing me to it.

This looks great and well designed.

If you want a bigger parts library, let us know at Volition:

https://govolition.com/

nick@govolition.com

Thanks Nick - I'm a fan of your site. Email coming your way.

Absolutely amazing, could've definitely used this a few years ago.

Also, definitely pitching in to add that an offline application would be good!

Minor annoyance: Scrolling this webpage on iOS, when I reach certain scroll positions, videos randomly open in fullscreen even if I didn't tap on anything.

It happens to me on many sites too, I'm not sure what causes it. Seems to mostly happen in Firefox iOS

Thanks for pointing this out!

It's a very well-designed tool. Great job.

Is there a way to add our own internal part numbers corresponding to manufacture's part number?

Can individual wires have different wire lengths?

Are there any features if when used won't render properly in wireviz?

Thanks!

For internal part numbers, are you wanting to assign internal part numbers for components (like connectors, etc.) used in an assembly or an internal part number to the assembly itself?

An internal part number for the assembly is coming soon, but the internal part numbers for individual components is not something that's planned right now.

Currently, all wires in a bundle (all wires between the same two connectors are part of a bundle) are forced to have the same length. Do you want to override that?

The connector graphics are not currently exported to WireViz YAML, so you'd have to re-link them manually with your own image file. The ability to download a zip with the graphics included is in the works.

I don't understand what I'm looking at ...

Does this let you build like arbitrary wire bundles and then choose your own end pieces like the ones on an ATX power supply?

Can it document modular synthesizer patch configurations?

Interesting application - not sure the visualization currently lends itself well to that. My first approach would be to make the modules components and then arrange them to mimic the actual appearance. We don't currently have text on the component creator so labeling may be tough.

I'll put something together with the current features and share here.

> Show HN: Splice – CAD for Cable Harnesses and Electrical Assemblies

Download ?

Hi -

Download as in run the app locally or download a design?

If the former, that's not currently possible.

If the latter, you can use the Download button on the harness builder (top floating button menu) to choose an available format for an engineering drawing, diagram, or BOM or choose JSON or WireVIZ YAML; see the Export and Documentation section here: https://splice-cad.com/#/tutorial

Fuck yes

:( I bungled the tutorial URL: https://splice-cad.com/#/tutorial

How do you mean? The trailing slash? I just removed it but let me know if you you need it (or anything else) changed in some other way.

Yes, the trailing slash - thanks for fixing it!

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