wire rope as power transmission shaft

Yes.. but it depends on power and alignment, if the rope is in a sleeve it will work fine, see Here..

Del

They are absolute life savers for those jobs you cannot get to any other way.

Make no mistake though about their nature, if given half the chance they will have your eye out, or worse. You need to have your wits about you with these at all times (speaks with hard earned experience).

Now I am clever I am qualified to use them

p.s. don't let go of the drill even if you feel safer holding the "busy" end with both hands.

One caveat: The flexible shafts can be driven BOTH directions. Not so with wire rope.

A shaft can be turned in 2 directions with a cable (wire rope).

Ooops flexible shaft...my mistake.

I would question the length as to the load. The turning of the wire rope with the spiral will cause the wire to shorten as the load increases. The longer the wire rope the greater the amount it will shorten.

The other suggestions of a sleeved wire rope will work, depending upon the severity of the service. If it is occasional at a low speed then no problem, but if it is in high speed or extended service you will have to ensure the lubrication is adequate or the rope will get torn up by the sleeve.

Speedometer cables are a very common example of the use of flexible cable drive (low power of course), but I think they are wound in a special way in order to give them uniform flexibility throughout a 360 degree rotation.

Wire rope might not have uniform flexibility and may therefore not transmit power at constant angular velocity throughout 360 degrees of rotation.

We had a speedo like cable between an electric motor and the tuning plug of magnetron in a Linear Accelerator for Automatic Frequency Control, which worked reasonably well until with age the cable showed quite a bit of mechanical hysteresis when the direction reversed.

The wire rope is designed for static loads, and I think we can't use it for power transmission as a shaft. In addition to that, the turning of the wire rope with the spiral will cause the wire to shorten. Also, the wire rope can resist twisting in one direction only, and if twisted to opposite direction it will decrease tighten between wires and rope will dismantled and damage. Finally, rapid and cyclic loadings to wire rope will terminate its life rapidly.

Common wire rope will not be a good transmission of power. It will become very unstable under loading. You can buy a cable that is wound bidirectionally that will transmit power. This is similar to the layup of the cable used in the many power tool extension shafts on the market today. The longer the shaft the greater the potential for a terrible failure resulting in great bodly harm. Use ridgid shafting, pillow blocks and U-joints to make a long run and use a flex shaft designed for the horsepower to make the final connection. Wire rope is, again, not a good choice for power transmission.

As usual ..it's down to definitions and semantics.....

Some of us consider 5 W to be 'Power' some of us think in terms of MW...

Of course it can transmit power... it's just a matter of detail!

If Guest wants a specific answer we need much more detail.

Nit pickers I'd say, the lot of them

guest 1

Probably the safer way to use wire rope for power transmission is as an endless band running in sheaves. This was done with ordinary rope (sisal, hemp, etc.), before V-belts came along, and later with wire rope. This is obsolete technology in any case.

Flexible shafts, by the way, come in two distinct types. One is made for power transmission, and usually has a distinct preference for rotation direction such that the outer layer is tightening onto the inner ones in use. Speedometer cable is of this type. The other is called control shafting, and is made with closely balanced alternating layers of wire to give essentially equal torque capability in both directions; often, this has only very low speed ratings. There are a number of types of wire rope, but none are really intended or fabricated to work as flex shafts. They'd do better in the power mode than the control mode, but that's not saying much. Try contacting companies like S. S. White Technologies (http://www.sswhite.net/index.htm) for "real" flex shaft.