Motorsport harnesses

Motorsport harnesses

Motorsport harnesses live in a hostile world… CableEye makes sure they are ready.

If you stop to think for a moment of the environment that motorsport harnesses have to operate in, it’s a pretty mean place.

  • Chemical contamination
  • Extremes of temperature
  • Vibration
  • Electrical noise

Cimbian UK, working as exclusive distributor for CableEye from CAMI Research, has many years of helping people to both improve their processes and, up-rate their testing to ensure that cable-harnesses leave the assembly department ready for reliable, long-life operation.

CableEye provides two real options for testing motorsport cable-harnesses:

  1. A low-voltage system (M3U) for testing continuity between programmable thresholds as well as measuring resistance and testing diodes.
  2. A high-voltage (HiPot) system (HVX) which does everything the M3U does but also provides a parametric test at high-voltage to test for insulation breakdown and/or whiskers.

The unique measurement algorithms used in CableEye ensure that every point is tested against every other point at high speed, and is tested using a bi-polar method to ensure that the continuity is good in both directions.

After a cable-harness has passed its low-voltage test it will then switch, automatically, into the HiPot mode. Here the assembly undergoes several different stages of test including dcV and acV, both with a programmable ramp-up and ramp-down rates to prevent damage to the insulation that may lead to early life failures (vehicle breakdown).

 

Motorsport harnesses - programmable ramp-up

Both the CableEye M3U and the CableEye HVX use the same software, which includes serial number entry by barcode (a single barcode can contain Serial number, batch, operator ID, part-code and more), data logging, and reporting.


Testing motorsport harnesses in the real-world:

Colin Harmer, owner of Creative Motorsport Solutions and user of a 256 pin HVX HiPot tester, seen below, said:

In this test, the customer had an issue that pointed at the corner looms being “suspect”. These were not looms we built but because the CableEye tester is so flexible we could quickly reverse engineer the loom, check it against the supplied drawings, and perform a Hi-Pot test in very little time. In general, motorsport-type builds are typically low volume which puts a premium on flexibility with fixtures and ease of use, which is a true delineator of the CAMI testers. We are now able to easily Hi-Pot test every product we produce which ensures that the client receives a goods that are exactly to specification. By keeping records of all the tests, we can easily retest at a future point to ensure that there’s been no change in the loom.

Motorsport harnesses - Test result

There are no “off the shelf” (interface fixture) solutions for motorsport connectors, so these have to be made.” “Each board is a breakout of 64 test points. Boards are modular so you can mix and match to fit the loom you’re testing.

Motorsport harnesses - test station and report

Image (courtesy of Creative Motorsport Solutions) of  a 256 Test Point continuity & HiPot harness tester with interface fixtures comprising a 128 Test Point base unit ,with one expansion module. The tester is further expandable to 1024 Test Points.

For more information on how a CableEye cable test system can help you in testing your motorsport harnesses simply fill in the form below and drop us a line.

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