When No Standard Construction Fits

There is a point where customisation stops being a choice from a list and becomes engineering. You are not picking a colour, a length or a jacket rating — you need a cable whose cross-section does not currently exist, because the product it goes into has constraints no catalogue item was designed around.

That is a development project. Wider Cable has manufactured cable since 2005 with raw-material-to-finished control across our Dongguan and Hưng Yên facilities, which is what makes this possible at all: the conductor, the insulation, the lay, the shield, the jacket and the termination are all decisions we can change, rather than specifications we inherit from a supplier and pass on to you.

The kinds of requirement that land here

• Hybrid and composite cables — data and power, or data and control, in a single jacket, so one run replaces two and the installation cost halves.
• Non-standard element counts — more or fewer pairs than a standard build, or pairs combined with other elements in one core.
• Diameter and bend constraints — the cable has to fit through a housing, a gland or a cable entry that nothing standard passes.
• Unusual shielding schemes — individual, group and overall screening combined to solve a specific noise problem.
• Jacket requirements driven by chemical exposure, cleaning regime, fire class, or a customer specification you cannot change.
• Embedded cables built into a finished product, where the cable is a component rather than an accessory.

How a development project runs

1. Requirement. You send what the cable has to do — electrically, mechanically, environmentally — and the constraints it has to live inside. A drawing helps. A sample of something close helps more.
2. Construction proposal. We come back with a cross-section: conductors, insulation, lay, shielding, jacket and termination, with the trade-offs stated. Where two requirements pull against each other, we say so here rather than after tooling.
3. Sample. A short run for you to test in the real application, not on a bench.
4. First article. Built on the production process, so what you approve is what you will receive.
5. Production. Across our China and Vietnam facilities, with Fluke test evidence and the certification documentation your project requires.

What we will tell you early

Two answers save everyone money, and we give them at the proposal stage rather than after you have committed:

• When a standard construction already does the job. If the requirement is met by something in the existing range, we will say so and quote that instead. Development that buys nothing is not a service.
• When the requirement contains a genuine conflict. Very small diameter and heavy shielding, or extreme flexibility and crush resistance, pull in opposite directions. We would rather have that conversation over a drawing than over a first article.

Certification

We hold UL, c(UL), ETL, CPR, RoHS, REACH, CE, SGS, ISO and TÜV, attached to the constructions that genuinely carry them. Where a developed construction needs a certification it does not yet hold, that is part of the project plan and we will be explicit about what it involves rather than implying it is already in place.

Related: Custom Ethernet cables · Custom PoE cables · Custom patch cables · Custom cable service

Common questions

What do you need to start?

A description of what the cable must do and the constraints it must fit inside. A drawing or a sample of the nearest existing product turns a long conversation into a short one.

Will you tell me if I do not need a custom construction?

Yes. If something in the standard range meets the requirement, we quote that. It is a faster order for both of us.

What volume justifies a development project?

It depends on how far the construction sits from an existing one. Send the requirement and the volume you expect and we will give you a straight answer before you invest time in drawings.

Do you protect our design?

Development work is done under whatever confidentiality arrangement you require. Raise it with the first enquiry and we will put it in place before drawings change hands.