Wiring Harness News NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012 1
INDUSTRIAL INFO-TAINMENT
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• Wire Harness Myths
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T su re • My Favourite “I” Words
Is tu • WHMA Las Vegas Review
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F • Vacuum Impregnation Sealing
• Methodology of Crimp Validation
MAY/JUNE
2013
Genco Industries
By Fred Noer
__________________________________
A
lthough the Great Recession
inflicted trauma on the U.S.
economy and society, the peri-
od did serve to educate and enlighten
people and transform companies. Paul
Lusic and Genco Industries, where he is
general manager and vice president, are
among them.
Genco, located in Waukesha, Wis.,
approximately 20 miles west of Milwau-
kee, is a contract manufacturer of cus-
tom cable assemblies, wiring harnesses
and electromechanical assemblies for
OEMs, many of them ranked in the For-
tune 500. The company also does wire
processing.
“I would say the recession helped our
company overall,” said Lusic, 36. “We
came out stronger than most companies
in our industry and in general. We do
more with less, and we’re more efficient.
Yes, we lost people along the way, but it
solidified us as a group as we’re all in
this together.”
The Genco staff consists of 26 people
The Methodology of
Crimp Validation
By Keith Nicholas
TE Application Tooling
Electrical Controls Manager
__________________________________
good crimp is one that
exhibits optimum mechanical
and electrical properties. The
mechanical properties help ensure that
the crimped harness survives its post-
crimp handling and long-term stresses
such as vibration or jarring that occur
during its lifetime. The electrical proper-
ties include the current carrying capaci-
ty and its termination impedance. To
achieve these optimum properties,
everything in the crimping process must
be correct. That’s a tall order when you
consider everything that can influence
the crimping process, but if you under-
stand it, then you’re doing better than
most. If everything is understood and
correct in the crimping process, you can
be more confident that the final
crimped product will meet quality
As part of Genco’s lean manufacturing efforts to eliminate waste, shared
tools and hand crimpers are organized and must be checked in and out for
each use.
– 18 in production and eight in manage-
ment. Before downsizing in 2009, total
staff members numbered 42.
While the recession was an imposing
challenge for Lusic, he had to deal with
another one, more significant in terms of
Genco’s long-term viability, when he
arrived at the firm just after Steve Dom-
A Hidden Opportunity for Wire Harness Manufacturers
A
Keith Nicholas
expectations. But, how do you know
you have a quality crimp? It starts with
understanding your customer’s require-
ments, be they industry specifications or
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Vacuum Impregnation Sealing
By Joe Tito
Wiring Harness News
__________________________________
A
brock, Lusic’s stepfather, bought it in
July 2006. They learned a large customer,
representing 20 percent of Genco’s total
sales, was leaving, a fact not known to
them before the sale.
mong the exhibitors at the
recent WHMA show, an aquar-
ium was on proud display. But
there was nothing fishy going on at the
Magna Tech booth. They were simply
demonstrating the wire sealing ability of
their Enviroseal™ technology. The dis-
play featured two jacketed cable assem-
blies with a small amount of air pressure
applied to each. Air bubbles were visible
on one of the assemblies revealing the
leak path that existed between the jack-
et and the individual wires. The other
sample was treated with Magna-Tech’s
Enviroseal vacuum impregnation sealing
technology, and had no air bubbles pass-
ing through the sample.
Chris Russell, VP Sales and Marketing
for Magna-Tech, was on hand to explain
the Enviroseal process. It all starts with a
need. Russell noted that small voids and
leak paths are inherent in most harness
assemblies. These leak paths, he noted,
allow the introduction of moisture, salt
spray, oils, and other corrosive agents;
and can ultimately lead to part failure.
Russell touted Enviroseal as a robust and
economical solution to the problem.
Vacuum impregnation technology
has been around for about 60 years, and
was initially developed to seal voids in
porous metal castings, and powdered
metal components. The process was
adapted for electrical wiring compo-
nents in the early 90's, and is rather sim-
ple. Cable assemblies are placed in bas-
kets that go in a pressure chamber
where a vacuum is drawn. A special liq-
uid resin is introduced, and the chamber
is then re-pressurized. The vacuum
release forces the resin into the voids, or
leak paths. Russell compared it to
squeezing a sponge, submersing it in
water and then releasing it. In this sce-
nario, the natural capillary action would
fill the voids in the sponge with water.
That’s essentially what is done with the
assemblies, “and the void that was
starved of air is now filled with the
resin,” he explained.
At this point, the baskets of assem-
blies travel through several rinses to
remove any excess resin from outside
surfaces. The remaining resin filling the
voids is left to cure to a flexible, ther-
moset, irreversible form. There is no
change in the appearance or dimension-
al attributes of the component. The
resulting resin seal is robust and resist-
ant to contaminants like moisture, salt,
glycols, oils, chlorinated and fluorinated
solvents, and mild caustics.
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