Bundling Control Cables Together

Never did this myself, but.........................it's cheap and quick and permanent.

If you can get over the name: hog rings.

Just a thought, outside the tray.

That's a thought (the name doesn't bother me). I'll keep looking through the images on google. Haven't seen any yet that involve cables.

The images do show some applications with elastic cord and it appears to rely on pinching for that use.

If that holds true, it wouldn't work for control cable that can't have the jackets pinched, although larger rings might just work. I'll keep looking.

Does anyone have experience using hog rings with control cables?

Hey, don't blame me if people laugh at you.

BD, Your observation is correct, metal hog rings won't flex enough to prevent cable damage as your roll and unroll your cable sets, especially if you pull them instead of laying them in the trays. Properly sized and tightened tie-wraps should work fine unless you're dragging the entire length through multiple twists and turns of the tray.

You might want to consult with a few manufacturers to select the best material/size for your requirements.

I like these for smooth snag free design....

http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/Cable-Ties-are-hand-safe-and-snag-proof-827763

Awesome suggestion.

I'm going to hunt these down and get some samples.

Thanks much.

These cable clamps are very popular and reliable. Cost wise also quite cheap. They are available everywhere, if you have any problem then they can be supplied from India. You need not hunt for them.

Might I suggest short pieces of spiral wrap wire loom? comes in multiple sizes, cut to 3 or 4 inch lengths, does not crimp and it pulls easily if it wraps tight enough to hold the cables.

How much time does it take to uncoil the three cores, bind, recoil and finally uncoil them again for installation compared to installing the three cores straight off the drum?

There must be a reason for what you are doing.

Yeah, but...if you have a light colored cable, say yellow PVC, which is a common color and insulation for signal cables, after the black tape is on a while, if you ever have to remove it, you are left with a black goo on the cable that is very difficult to remove. Maybe that doesn't apply here or is of no concern, but I know in the world of sanitary installations, it is not allowed. Just a warning in case.

Shrinkable tubings are a good choice for your application. They come in different colors and sizes. Colors that are normally used for marking or color coding the bundled cables. Made of Teflon tubings that can be cut to the desired length. Control cables are pre-inserted through the tubings, then heated using heat gun to shrink to the desired size of the bundled cables.

I have used a plastic bag sealer for this type of application (Up to 700x 4x 4mm diameter cable bundles from 30m to 200m long for strain gauge sensor wiring used in on-board ship loading systems). The model we used was a Tachit™ E-9 but there are plenty of other manufacturers on the market. As well as wrapping the cables it produces a ½" soft tag that accepts marker pen so you can write routing information at the ends and at junction points along the route. Because it is a sticky tape you can line up the cables like a ribbon cable making them neat and easy to lay on the tray. The wraps are not a long term solution (max 1-2 months) but this should not be a problem if you are fixing to the cable trays. Each wrap takes about 1 second to apply so we wrapped every 1.5m (one arm span of the operator). We also used a cable length meter so that we knew where to cut and where to mark the tags at tray junctions. Checking back on old records, we allocated 5 minutes for a 50m bundle, wrapped, marked, with number ferrules to each end of each cable and one end fitted with crimped terminals (24 cores total using a powered semi-automatic strip/crimp tool), and the operators made bonus.

Tachit also sell a "defined cut to length tape dispenser that would work with standard electrical tape. Quicker than cutting tape with a kraft knife but you still need to hand wrap.

I haven't tried them, but Igus has little plastic chain looking things "energy chain" that is supposed to hold cables and be able to move as well.

I had a sample piece of one. Looked pretty good.

http://www.igus.com/energychains

http://www.igus.com/wpck/4843/about_energy_chain_cable_carriers

What I have used a lot of is: band wraps, braided harness, or split tube / split loom. All of those work well enough for the applications I work on, and they are fairly low cost.

Take the wires you have and stretch them out straight. Have a friend hold one end and put the other end in a electric drill. Twist them together with the drill.

Have you looked at cable lacing, this is old school but effective method before zip ties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_lacing Google cable lacing for more info.