[HN Gopher] Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple
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Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple
Author : nateb2022
Score : 16 points
Date : 2025-07-07 04:04 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (splice-cad.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (splice-cad.com)
| all2 wrote:
| Just from glancing at the home page, this looks like a much
| fancier version of my SVG pipeline from 15 years ago. If it isn't
| too opinionated, it should be rather useful.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I've never seen reference to mate/wire side instead of
| male/female. Is that a Euro thing?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Maybe a modernization of terms, such as replacing
| "master/slave" terminology with "controller/worker" or similar
| in various computing or mechanical systems?
| gia_ferrari wrote:
| They specify different things. The wire side of a bulkhead
| connector may be male or female. Some connectors (i.e. the
| Molex ones you used to see at Radio Shack) are even designed so
| you can make a custom arrangement of male/female contacts
| within one connector housing.
| omgtehlion wrote:
| I suppose this is about different thing: male/female are about
| two parts of connector mating together. And each of these parts
| has mating side (to the other) and side where wires come in.
| This is the first time I see this distinction though (usually
| only mating side is considered)...
| exmadscientist wrote:
| That is a separate issue. There are (at least) four different
| distinctions in cable connectors:
|
| 1. Jack vs plug. The "plug" side is the side that moves. The
| "jack" side is the side that doesn't move, or moves less. Think
| of a wall outlet: the "jack" is the outlet and the "plug" is
| the, well, plug.
|
| 2. Male housing vs female housing. The "male" housing goes into
| the "female" housing. Simple enough (if you don't have to
| explain it to your six-year-old...).
|
| 3. Male _terminal_ vs female _terminal_. Again, the male goes
| into the female. But the little conductive pins don 't have to
| (and, often, don't) match the gender of the housing itself.
| Molex Micro-Fit 3.0 is an excellent connector series that is
| notorious for having the terminal gender reversed from the
| housing gender. (And of course, both genders of crimp terminal
| are available.) This can cause problems if your communication
| is not perfect, but _is_ still good enough that people actually
| think they can trust you.
|
| 4. Mating view vs wire view. "Mating view" is the view that
| you'd see if you were sitting on top of the mating connector,
| just before you got squished. "Cable view" is the view that
| you'd see if you were riding on the wiring behind the housing.
| They are mirror images of one another. It can be impossible to
| tell from a pinout drawing which view it is, even if there is a
| polarization feature (pin 1 marks are often OK, latches are
| usually not), _so you HAVE to say_. The "component view" vs
| "solder side view" distinction (among other names) is analogous
| for PCB mount connectors.
|
| All of these issues are but a small part of what makes
| connectors _utterly horrible_ to deal with. They have wasted
| more time, money, and effort than you will ever know.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > They have wasted more time, money, and effort than you will
| ever know.
|
| Oh, I'm well aware. I've been making custom cables since high
| school back when Moses was a baby floating down the river.
|
| If it weren't for all of the confusion, we wouldn't have
| lovely phrases like "fuck the truck" to help remember which
| end of the cable goes to the truck.
| gia_ferrari wrote:
| Separately from the software itself, I'm left with questions
| about the context in which this tool is provided.
|
| - Is this a passion project? Commercial? Is it free? Will it
| always be free? What's the pricing model? - How do I get in
| contact? - Is there a company behind this? - If I start using
| this, can I hold on to/export the data in usable form?
| splice-cad wrote:
| Hi all -
|
| Nate, thanks for sharing this - I actually posted this over
| here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44417587) a few days
| ago.
|
| Regarding pricing, etc. - right now we're limiting users to 50
| harnesses per account. There are no plans to charge for usage
| below this amount with the current features. I'm hoping people
| find the tool useful and we can use the feedback to improve it.
|
| You can can get in touch here: info@splice-cad.com
|
| Re mate vs wire side, that's just my preference - no ambiguity
| in orientation!
| gia_ferrari wrote:
| Thanks for the reply! If this information were available on
| the landing page, I'd have felt a lot more comfortable
| investing the time to try the tool out. I do appreciate how
| far you can explore even without an account.
|
| Couple more ideas for the landing page:
|
| - Provide links to examples of generated exports in the
| formats you support, so folks can get a feel for how it might
| integrate into their workflow.
|
| - The elements under "Everything You Need for Cable Design"
| animate as though they're interactive, but clicking them does
| nothing. Confused me for a bit.
|
| - Page is very hard to read on mobile.
|
| Other thoughts:
|
| - I wasn't able to figure out how to pan the editor view
| around.
|
| - Adding some sort of json/yaml/xml import/export would open
| up a lot more workflow possibilities. For example, I want to
| associate a harness version with a git tag, without needing
| to manually make a copy of a harness version in the app. Git
| (and/or github) integration would be great. Honestly, even an
| opaque blob export would be tolerable.
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(page generated 2025-07-09 23:01 UTC)