Optimizing Custom Cable Solutions for Aerospace & Defense Applications
The aerospace and defense industries demand highly specialized cables and cable assemblies that can withstand extreme conditions while ensuring reliable operation. These interconnects are designed to meet stringent performance standards, often exceeding those found in commercial applications.
Custom cable solutions play a critical role in meeting the unique requirements of aerospace and defense applications. These cables are tailored to specific needs, often incorporating specialized plastics, connectors and shielding to optimize performance and reduce the risk of failure during critical missions.
In most cases, custom cables and cable assemblies incur higher costs during the initial low-volume prototype phase.
However, the cost benefits of custom solutions become evident as production scales. Once full-scale manufacturing is reached, the pricing stabilizes, leading to significant long-term savings.
Custom cables offer enhanced durability, reducing replacement costs and minimizing downtime, thereby improving operational efficiency and product reliability.
Custom Cables vs. Off-the-Shelf
Compared to off-the-shelf cable solutions, custom cables and assemblies provide substantial cost advantages and superior performance, particularly in response to increasing market competition and stringent application requirements.
Custom cable solutions provide several primary benefits.
A key advantage is the ability to tailor materials to meet specific environmental, mechanical, electrical, and aesthetic requirements, ensuring optimal functionality and compliance to any military standards or operational requirements.
Another important benefit is that working with an experienced cable manufacturer not only helps tailor your material selection but allows the cable manufacturers to customize process parameters to enhance several unique cable characteristics.
Process changes can improve several cable characteristics:
- Flex life
- Flexibility
- Crush resistance
- EMI
- Ease of stripping
Custom cables also allow for the integration of multiple technologies and applications into a single composite cable, where data and power are together under a single jacket. This eliminates the need for extra connectors, shrinks the form factor and simplifies the supply chain.
By partnering with Northwire, a custom cable manufacturer offering value-added cable assembly services, your custom cable will be designed for optimal manufacturing efficiency while meeting your specific system requirements.
Our custom cables feature primary color rotations to streamline connector termination and incorporate specially designed strength members tailored to each connector termination method. This ensures compliance with cable pull-out and axial strength requirements outlined in Mil-Std-202 and Mil-Std-1344.
These design enhancements improve both manufacturing efficiency and tensile strength (axial tensile load), ultimately saving time and reducing costs.
Custom cable solutions are essential for ensuring reliable operation in rugged aerospace, defense, military and first responder applications. By utilizing specialized materials, connector and construction techniques, these cables can withstand harsh environments, while delivering high performance data, and power transfer.
Defining requirements early and collaborating with Northwire's custom cable design team during your design planning phase ensures that high-performance cable and interconnect solutions are delivered at the lowest possible cost.
Learn more about custom cables and assemblies for Aerospace and Defense here.
