Practical Wiring - Club Level: Preparing Your Workspace
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Preparing Your Workspace
02.54
| 00:00 | - Your workspace can have a large impact on both the quality of your final outcome and the time it takes to get there. |
| 00:06 | There's a saying which I think applies to your workspace when building an automotive wiring harness, that is tidy house, tidy mind. |
| 00:13 | When building your harness you're going to need to be thinking two or three steps ahead of your current position. |
| 00:18 | This is much easier to do if you can remove distractions from your workspace. |
| 00:22 | Depending on the size of the harness you're building, they can get quite long an cumbersome to move around on the bench top and when you need to flip over the partially built harness to access the other end, the last thing you want is a stray branch knocking over a container of terminals onto the floor. |
| 00:37 | For this reason, you're going to want the largest flat tabletop workspace you can manage. |
| 00:41 | It really can't be too large. |
| 00:43 | But I would suggest a minimum table area of two meters long by 700 millimetres deep. |
| 00:49 | This will give you the length to lay out the majority of the harness and make it easier to measure the distances between the branches and the depth to store your supplies along the back edge out of the way of the harness as you're moving it around. |
| 01:00 | You'll also need to have a computer with an internet connection close by. |
| 01:03 | This is for accessing reference material and updating your design as you follow it through. |
| 01:09 | Much of our documentation is finalised digitally so it can be stored safely and referred to in the future when required. |
| 01:15 | This also means you will need to have a mains power supply at your workspace to power or charge your computer and also other tools we're going to use like a heat gun. |
| 01:24 | Tool storage is another consideration. |
| 01:26 | Long term tool storage will be up to your individual set up. |
| 01:29 | But some of the cutters, strippers, and crimpers we're using are precision tools with tight tolerances, so they need to be stored carefully and protected from the elements. |
| 01:38 | When you're in the middle of a harness build process, these tools can have the tendency to spread out over your workspace, which can become frustrating when you're trying to hold a harness branch in a specific orientation, wrap it in kapton tape and reach for the scissors which will inevitably be at the other end of the bench. |
| 01:53 | I like to keep a paper tray on the table top, to put my tools back into when I'm not using this so I always know where they are and they don't clutter up the workspace. |
| 02:02 | How you store your materials will also need some thought. |
| 02:05 | If you've purchased just the materials you need for a single harness build, this is likely to be less of a concern, you just want to make sure they are tidy and out of the way until they're needed. |
| 02:14 | If you're planning on building multiple harnesses, the quantity of supplies you've ordered is likely to be much larger and you're going to need specific storage solutions. |
| 02:23 | A rack to store your wire spools on is fairly easy to fabricate and doesn't need to be elaborate. |
| 02:28 | But make sure that you leave enough room between the spool racks to accomodate the largest size of spool that you've been supplied. |
| 02:34 | Above all else, you need to ensure that your workspace is clean. |
| 02:38 | One of the key aims of our harness construction techniques is to ensure that our harness is free and will remain free from contamination that might affect its function. |
| 02:47 | This begins with having a clean and tidy workspace. |
