Re: Curly Cord

[Bob La Londe <alarm_wizard@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday, August 31, 2012 11:27:18 AM UTC-7, Jim wrote:
> On Thursday, August 30, 2012 1:36:25 PM UTC-4, Bob La Londe wrote: > I am=
 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