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Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple

splice-cad.com

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Re: Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple

#11

Post by gia_ferrari »

splice-cad wrote: post #8
gia_ferrari wrote: post #6

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?

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 her…

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.

Re: Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple

#12

Post by exmadscientist »

dylan604 wrote: post #10
exmadscientist wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Making cables by hand, or sending out orders to the cable factory during NPI?

By hand you can usually only screw it up four or five times (for a cable there are only four ways to make). Sending out orders during New Product Introduction (so nobody knows what they're doing, and the answer to "how did that work last time?" is "in fact, that has never once in the history of human civilization worked") to a cable vendor that engineering (you) recommended be dropped due to quality problems including (but not limited to) "does not read the cable drawing", but management insisted we keep using because "we know how to order from them" (which was awful -- hand delivering parts, dealing with angry dogs in the way, drunken contacts at the vendor, and finding out that not only do their neighbors hate them (no surprise), but they managed to personally (personally!) get on the bad list with their FedEx guy; this is not easy) -- so that is no excuse)... that's how you get to the real pain.

Re: Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple

#13

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

exmadscientist wrote: post #9
dylan604 wrote: post #3

I've never seen reference to mate/wire side instead of male/female. Is that a Euro thing?

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…

Anderson Powerpole connectors[1][2] have hermaphroditic housings, hermaphroditic contacts, and they're both usually on flexible leads so there's not usually a good distinction between jack & plug!

Antennas are the external fertilization of connector sexing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_Powerpole [2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rBkcZlOyPsc (NSFW unless you're in the trades)

Re: Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple

#14

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

exmadscientist wrote: post #12
dylan604 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Making cables by hand, or sending out orders to the cable factory during NPI? By hand you can usually only screw it up four or five times (for a cable there are only four ways to make). Sending out orders during New Product Introduction (so nobody knows what they're doing, and the answer to "how did that work last time?" is "in fact, that has never once in the history of human civilization worked") to a cable vendor…

I see you've worked with my employer's cable vendor before!

Re: Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple

#15

Post by splice-cad »

gia_ferrari wrote: post #11
splice-cad wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 her…

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 eleme…

Thanks for the feedback, Gia - we were able to get a couple of the items on your list fixed in an update today.

To pan, click and hold the right mouse key (or wheel) and drag. Are you trying this from a tablet?

There’s now a blog section on the site: https://splice-cad.com/#/blog/splice-updates-july-2025 where we’re documenting changes, fixes, and future plans. The feedback from this post has been very helpful.

Re: Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple

#16

Post by gia_ferrari »

splice-cad wrote: post #15
gia_ferrari wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eleme…

Thanks for the feedback, Gia - we were able to get a couple of the items on your list fixed in an update today. To pan, click and hold the right mouse key (or wheel) and drag. Are you trying this from a tablet? There’s now a blog section on the site: https://splice-cad.com/#/blog/splice-updates-july-2025 where we’re documenting changes, fixes, and future plans. The feedback from this post has been very helpful.

Super, I'll check it out. I'm on Firefox in Linux (Kubuntu) using a plain old mouse - pretty sure I tried a right click pan. I tried again and it still didn't work. Also- clicking around on the canvas I get: Uncaught ReferenceError: TouchEvent is not defined Ks https://splice-cad.com/assets/SvgPage.zgJCQbB-.js:302 Ia https://splice-cad.com/assets/SvgPage.zgJCQbB-.js:302

Re: Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple

#17

Post by splice-cad »

gia_ferrari wrote: post #16
splice-cad wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback, Gia - we were able to get a couple of the items on your list fixed in an update today. To pan, click and hold the right mouse key (or wheel) and drag. Are you trying this from a tablet? There’s now a blog section on the site: https://splice-cad.com/#/blog/splice-updates-july-2025 where we’re documenting changes, fixes, and future plans. The feedback from this post has been very helpful.

Super, I'll check it out. I'm on Firefox in Linux (Kubuntu) using a plain old mouse - pretty sure I tried a right click pan. I tried again and it still didn't work. Also- clicking around on the canvas I get: Uncaught ReferenceError: TouchEvent is not defined Ks https://splice-cad.com/assets/SvgPage.zgJCQbB-.js:302 Ia https://splice-cad.com/assets/SvgPage.zgJCQbB-.js:302

Thanks for reporting, Gia - we added a repo to track issues on Github here: https://github.com/splice-cad/splice-cad-app/issues

Re: Splice: Cable Harness Design Made Simple

#18

Post by splice-cad »

gia_ferrari wrote: post #16
splice-cad wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback, Gia - we were able to get a couple of the items on your list fixed in an update today. To pan, click and hold the right mouse key (or wheel) and drag. Are you trying this from a tablet? There’s now a blog section on the site: https://splice-cad.com/#/blog/splice-updates-july-2025 where we’re documenting changes, fixes, and future plans. The feedback from this post has been very helpful.

Super, I'll check it out. I'm on Firefox in Linux (Kubuntu) using a plain old mouse - pretty sure I tried a right click pan. I tried again and it still didn't work. Also- clicking around on the canvas I get: Uncaught ReferenceError: TouchEvent is not defined Ks https://splice-cad.com/assets/SvgPage.zgJCQbB-.js:302 Ia https://splice-cad.com/assets/SvgPage.zgJCQbB-.js:302

Finally fixed, along with some more updates here: https://splice-cad.com/#/blog/splice-updates-july-20-2025
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