Curly Cord

check with Stanton industrial electric supply he finds all kinds of wire for me412-242-9300

If you can't find it, I believe it's possible to construct your own using highly flexible wires and curly plastic tubing. Assuming you have room for that. At least that way, you shouldn't run out of conductors. As I recall, something like 4 inch diameter plastic coils.

One project we used fibred flex cable all rolled up. take a look inside an old printer for an example. Interestingly, the strain relief had to extend several inches because even the longitudinal flexing of the cabling tended to break it. Another polyimide PCB [I think, may have been polyamide, which works in a vacuum, too]

From memory, the high quality curly cords we used were copper foil wrapped over silk thread. They were rather resistive, but never broke, and IMPOSSIBLE to kluge to to make a temporary connection. The cheap ones out of Asia were simply tiny fibres of copper, like 15-22 strands per conductor, but they were one tenth the resistance and EASY to kluge connections to with a soldering iron, which is guarranteed to make a spot for the cable to break.

Typically with a curly cord there is a fixed cable pass through were movement ends if setup properly. There should be a strain relief installed at that point also. All splices, connections, etc should be made beyond that point so that no movement can dislodge them or create high strain at a "hard point" like the tinned end of a conductor. Even something as simple as the plug on the end of a telephone cord employs this principal to some degree. There is a plastic tab that compresses down and holds the cable in place. The individual conductors are then penetrated (for stranded) or skinned (for solid) beyond that point to make the electrical connection.

ost I have found is 10 conductors. Its for a custom built remote for a CNC = machine, but if anybody knows wire its this group. I can get by with 10, bu= t 12 would be better allowing my to run a separate common for critical item= s like an emergency stop circuit. I'ld like conductors large enough to tin = and put in a screw terminal, and a fair amount of straight jacket at each e= nd. If the curly part easily stretches to about 4 feet with a max of 5 or s= o it would be perfect.

I know that nowdays you can buy just about anything that you can think of b= ut years and years ago when I was working for a manufacturer we needed a co= il cord (only one for a custom made one of a kind product) I was shop forma= n at the time so I had the responsibility of getting the end product made.= =20

I found a coiled spring about 18 or 16 ( forget) guage spring steel, about =

2 inches in diameter and one foot long retracted. I located some of the typ= e of wire they use in telephone coil cords. ( woven with thread ) but it wa= s 22 guage wire. I threaded some thin teflon tubing over the spring (to av= oid abrasion) . I had discovered somewhere that if you soak vinyl tubing in= Methyl Ethel Keytone that it will expand and when it dries out, the tubing= will recover to it's original diameter. I picked a size of thin wall tubin= g that wouldn't be too thight and pulled the teflon covered spring and the = 12 strands of wire through the expanded PVC and let it dry in the coiled po= sition. I wound up with a fairly tight 3 foot (retracted) coil cord that wa= s being used daily maybe five hundred to a thousand expansions a day. As fa= r as I know, the system was still functioning 5 years later. It was only be= ing pulled out to about 4 to five feet, so it didn't get that much wear. T= he hardest thing in the whole project was terminating that damn wire. I doe= sn't solder or crimp easily.

On Friday, August 31, 2012 11:27:18 AM UTC-7, Jim wrote:

looking for a decent length multi conductor curly cord. So far the most I = have found is 10 conductors. Its for a custom built remote for a CNC machin= e, but if anybody knows wire its this group. I can get by with 10, but 12 w= ould be better allowing my to run a separate common for critical items like= an emergency stop circuit. I'ld like conductors large enough to tin and pu= t in a screw terminal, and a fair amount of straight jacket at each end. If= the curly part easily stretches to about 4 feet with a max of 5 or so it w= ould be perfect. I know that nowdays you can buy just about anything that y= ou can think of but years and years ago when I was working for a manufactur= er we needed a coil cord (only one for a custom made one of a kind product)= I was shop forman at the time so I had the responsibility of getting the e= nd product made. I found a coiled spring about 18 or 16 ( forget) guage spr= ing steel, about 2 inches in diameter and one foot long retracted. I locate= d some of the type of wire they use in telephone coil cords. ( woven with t= hread ) but it was 22 guage wire. I threaded some thin teflon tubing over t= he spring (to avoid abrasion) . I had discovered somewhere that if you soak= vinyl tubing in Methyl Ethel Keytone that it will expand and when it dries= out, the tubing will recover to it's original diameter. I picked a size of= thin wall tubing that wouldn't be too thight and pulled the teflon covered= spring and the 12 strands of wire through the expanded PVC and let it dry = in the coiled position. I wound up with a fairly tight 3 foot (retracted) c= oil cord that was being used daily maybe five hundred to a thousand expansi= ons a day. As far as I know, the system was still functioning 5 years later= . It was only being pulled out to about 4 to five feet, so it didn't get th= at much wear. The hardest thing in the whole project was terminating that d= amn wire. I doesn't solder or crimp easily.

Yeah... termination is a pain. Had to do that once or twice for custom ins= tallation. I'm actually considering using one of the 10 conductor prefab R= J45 style plug/cords instead, and moving my E-stop button to a fixed locati= on instead of on the control pendant. =20