Looking for help with a strain relief on a very high cycling electrical cable

I don't have an answer but what happens to the cable? Is this 600 volt cable? I'm sure your have already looked but I did find this from a google search. I would also call the mfg for some help.

http://www.igus.com/chainflex.asp?gclid=CK_Wm-rwkJ8CFQJinAodn0dGJA

I recall having seen something similar many years ago when I just got out of college for the first time and worked at a pasta plant. They had a similar problem with some sort of screening table that used a similar set up where the motor and eccentrics where on the shaker with a pitman arm going to the main machine frame. It had a similar problem with the power cords rubbing through or tearing out every few weeks.

We came to the brilliant idea of just turning the whole thing around a put the motor and eccentrics on the solid frame and ran the shaker pitman to the screen table. As far as I can remember it worked just the same and solved a lot of down time problems.

Some time later the original manufacture reps came by and saw it and said it will never work that way. The few months of near nonstop running it had put in up to that point while also having logged far less problems seemed to say otherwise. But what did we know, we where just fix it guys and not engineers.

I suspect your problem is not the strain relief technique but that you are using the wrong cable. A flexible cable made of many fine wires is designed for many flex cycles. I had a machine that twice a year would break at least one of its cables. The technician who installed one of these ultra fine stranded cables originally cursed me for specifying one of these cables because they are a pain in the @$$ to terminate. But that was over two years ago and none of the 16 cables have broken yet.

If the cable has too little slack, could it be vibrating like a violin string, perhaps at a resonant frequency?

I agree with REDFRED, a more flexible cable may be the easiest solution...

another thought... Hubbel makes a product called a 'kellum grip' this is basically a chinese finger puzzle made of steel wire that goes around the cable and allows you to anchor the cable either to the connector or to a fixed point... they also add a little stiffness to the cable and should help limit bending thereby reducing metal fatigue and increasing cable life.

Good luck!

Try Olflex cable, it has worked well for me in repetitive twisting motions in automation applications.

http://www.plantautomation.com/ecommcenter.mvc/storefront/olflex?VNETCOOKIE=NO

I've had great success with Super-Trex Electrical Cable and Cord, www.tpcwire.com.

Your cable is failing from fatigue. Try Goggling fatigue resistant wire. There are lots of manufacturers. BTW a popular brand of German made dishwasher also has this problem. A power wire flexes whenever the door is opened and closed. It eventually fails. The owner is often advised to replace the unit, but a short splice with fatigue resistant wire cures the problem forever.

Put a loop in the cable at or near both ends both. Make it approx 20" in diameter.