Stripping Drag Chain Cables with just a Single Hand
Due to their construction, high-quality drag chain cables are often difficult to strip, making installation more challenging and increasing the risk of damage being done to the cores. To solve this, HELUKABEL has developed a special ripcord for their HELUCHAIN MULTISPEED series of cables which enables users to effortlessly remove the outer sheath with the pull of just a single hand. This dramatically cuts down on assembly time for users and helps avoid downtime and malfunctions due to damaged cores.
Drag chain cables are exposed to high loads and often need to complete millions of movement cycles. The tight bending radii of drag chains, long travel distances, and abrasion from cables rubbing against each other and against the stays also present real challenges. To overcome these, manufacturers of high-quality cables employ special production techniques that improve the quality and durability of the cables.
One such technique is called pressure extrusion. This involves the liquefied plastic sheath that encases the cable, protecting it from external factors, being applied, or extruded, onto the stranded cores under pressure. This allows the liquid plastic to flow into every cavity, stabilising the individual cores and making the cable significantly more robust, especially when it comes to long travel distances.
Pressure extrusion does, however, come with the disadvantage of making it considerably more difficult to strip the cable. This means that traditional circumferential sheath removal is ineffective, and the efficacy of mechanical methods is limited. For installers, this means more work as more care must be taken to not damage the cable cores with their stripping knife.
HELUKABEL has an innovative solution for this problem: ripcords. Select variations of HELUCHAIN MULTISPEED drag chain cables are now available with this specially developed ripcord, and the principle behind it is the stuff of genius. Employing a design element similar to that found in consumer-friendly postal packaging, the user can quickly and easily open the cable lengthwise with just a pull of the ripcord. The ripcord is situated alongside the stranded cores, meaning in unscreened cables, it is under the outer sheath, and in screened cables, it is under the inner sheath. This allows users to effortlessly expose the cores within to the desired length. The final removal of the sheath material can be achieved with a simple circumferential cut—no special tools required.
HELUKABEL currently offers ripcords in their HELUCHAIN drag chain cables MULTISPEED 522, MULTISPEED 522-C, MULTISPEED-TRONIC, and MULTISPEED-TRONIC-C for the same price as their previous variations, and new cable types are constantly being added to this range. These innovative cables benefit users by dramatically simplifying the installation process, saving time and money. This safe cable stripping technology even minimises the risk of damaging the cores, which could result in expensive disruptions and downtime, and thus these cables contribute to the overall safe and reliable operation of machinery and systems.