Low voltage wiring
Description
Design
Pinout guide
Color codes
Headers & connectors
Reasoning
The connectors on the car are standardized, this eases development by removing the need for finding new products matching requirements every year. It reduces the amount of different products and tools kept in stock. The selected connectors have already been proven to work by previous members. If future members want to use different connectors than the once listed below careful consideration should be given to what benefits swapping connectors would provide and why it is necessary.
Note about "legacy" connector series
Some of the connectors on the car are "legacy" connectors. A "legacy" connector, is a connector outside of the connector series listed below. It is in use on the car due to it being part of a old system, the work needed to replace them would be too great or too costly to perform. A good example of this is the AMPSEAL connector for the ACCU MB from AR26. In order to replace this connector a redesign and reproduction of both the motherboard and TSAC would be necessary. So long as systems like this are used on the car the old connectors will remain in use, but it is encouraged to replace this connector with one outlined below in future designs of these systems.
PCBs
Inside enclosures
In this section, "Inside enclosure" connectors refers to headers on a PCBs that are connected to wires running inside a waterproof, sealed during operation enclosure.
Signal
Power
Inn/out of enclosure
In this section, "Inn/out of enclosure" connector refers to connectors/headers on a PCB that goes through an enclosure wall, bypassing the need for running cables inside the enclosure to a dedicated connector in the enclosure wall. This section is for PCB mounted series, for PCB independent series see below.
Signal
Power
Inn/out of enclosures
In this section, "Inn/out of enclose" connector refers to connectors that are not mounted directly on a PCB but in the wall of an enclosure, bridging the inside and outside of the enclosure. Wires from "Inside enclosure" connectors can be terminated in these to connect them to the outside world.
Signal
Power
Peripheral
Signal
Power
Power
CANbus
SDC
Analogue and digital signals
Creating the harness
Eye catching image to get you to pay attention to this section specifically
In this section the challenges, solutions to these challenges and the process I have encountered and used in the creation of the AR26/AR27 low voltage wiring harness are documented. Feel free to use this as a reference for designing future harnesses, and please update it with any useful procedures, tips or any other information you deem useful in designing a wiring harness for the benefit of future members.
Wire diagrams
Pinouts
In order to create the wiring harness diagram, a overview of the pinout of all the PCBs and components is required. This has historically proved to be a big obstacle to the creation of the wiring harness because members finalize pinouts late in the design phase. In order to mitigate this a new approach is tried for AR27 by utilizing the wiki. Members should begin by designing their systems on the wiki, which features the PCB has, how these features are implemented, which inputs and outputs are required and first draft of pinout should be present on the wiki