5 Things to Know Before Buying cable drag chain

There are so many of us with hobby CNC's out there that i thought i would share some professional knowledge on a topic very seldom covered in our favorite CNC forums. Cable chains carry the power and signals needed to get the job done. Often the cables are cheap enough to replace but it is the hassle of doing the job is time consuming. The bigger problem is when the cables fail during the process, or trying to fault find those missing steps on cables with broken internal cores.

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When designing cable chains care needs be taken when selecting firstly the type of chain/carrier and secondly the type of cables to be fitted to the chain, followed by the layout of the cables in the chain. Most of the major chain manufactures have some documentation detailing how to choose and setup their chains to ensure the longest lifetime of both the chain and its contents. Following those guidelines to the letter would ensure lifetimes typically in the 10 of millions cycles range, but would also produce excessively wide chains that we could not easily fit into our applications.

A compromise to having the idea chain is to stack cables on top of another, thereby reducing the overall width of the carrier and cycle life. Stacking cables in a chain is not recommended by the manufactures, but they realize that there are applications that call for the reduced carrier footprint and there design guidelines cover this. The guidelines for stacking ensure cables will be able to move freely with minimum friction and reduce the ability of cables tangling.

I have taken this info from guidelines, emails and face to face meetings from the four major manufactures in Europe so i hope this instructable will help you get the best lifetime out of your chains. Due to the formatting here i have included a PDF with slightly better formatting at the end.

In order to achieve the longest possible operating results in conditions where minimum hi and bi are not possible it is recommended to use cavity dividers and follow these procedures:

· Keep unlike components apart

· Keep unlike cable or hose jacket materials apart

· When cable or hose diameters are less than 60% of the selected or available inner cavity total height (< 60% of hi)

· Individual flat cables must be kept separated, in private compartments

This will

· Prevent cables or hoses from tangling and damage

· Aid in maintaining the best left to right symmetrical weight distribution and balance of the carrier cavity contents

· Ensure maximum cavity fill should be less than or equal to 60% of cavity area

If in accordance with the previously mentioned recommendations it is found that cavity dividers are required. As mentioned before the sum of the dividers should be added to the total sum. From this the new chain width can be determined. If this new width is wider than allowed, stacking certain cables or hoses is possible using horizontal shelving. It is at this stage that the suppliers usually ask end users to contact them for expert advice, but we dont buy enough from them so the chance of them helping us is slim.

If dividers are going to be used it is import to decide how often they are placed, most suppliers default to placing dividers every second link with a maximum separation distance of ½ a meter. The rule of thumb is that the more cables there are the more often divides should be placed.

Continuous Flex - In such cases the cable is rolling back and forth in a linear motion resulting in the cable (and the conductors within) to flex in an equivalent way. This is typically the case for all cables that are approved for use within cable carrier systems where required bend radii are typically 10x the cable O.D or less.

Torsional Flex - In such cases, the cable is being twisted clockwise and counterclockwise off its center-line axis with angles varying from 90 to 360 degrees “rotation”. This type of flexing typically occurs on multi-axis robotic machinery that requires constant twisting and flexing over a sustained period of time.

Bending Flex - In such cases, the cable is flexing back and forth off a stationary point. Industry commonly refers to this as a tick tock motion. A vast majority of the stress on the cable in such cases are the two focal points where the bend and load are being applied.

Only continuous Flex cables are recommended for use in cable chains.

Unilay - Cable conductors (copper groups or wire strands) of any number are twisted together with the same lay direction and the cable lay length. Bunch construction will not have a well feigned geometric configuration and may have a variable cross-section. A Unilay construction will have a well defined geometric configuration and a defined cross-section. This type of cabling technique is usually used in static applications.

Concentric Contra-Helical - Conductors are surrounded by well defined layers of helically laid conductors. Each layer has a reversed lay direction and an increasing lay length in each succeeding layer. This type of cabling technique is usually used on continuously flex cable applications and designs (this should be used in cable chains)

Concentric Unilay – Conductors are surrounded by one or more layers of helically laid conductors with the same direction or lay and increasing lay length in each succeeding layer. This type of cabling technique is usually used in torsional flex applications and designs

The last type that is common and arguably the best is the Chainflex cable from IGUS, super expensive but great lifetimes. If you are that tempted just drop chainflex in google.

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When installing cables or hoses into the carrier system, they should be laid into the carrier without twist and in accordance to the guidelines in the image. Cables or hoses should not be simply pulled off the real. Instead, they should be properly uncoiled from the reel also shown in the image.

· After the carrier system is properly installed onto the machinery and likewise the cables and/ or hoses installed within the carrier system, the entire system should be initially run-off at slow speed to insure that everything runs freely and smoothly without the carrier, cables and/or hoses binding.

· Check that all cables and hoses are not installed too tight (stretched between carrier bars) or too loose (hanging on the carrier bars) inside the carrier system when clamping them into place. Optimally, aim for the “neutral axis” (center line of the link) of the carrier system as shown below.

· Any adjustments to the carrier position or alignment as well as cable and/or hose position and length should be done at this time.

· Once the entire system is double checked, everything should be firmly tightened down. Important: Each cable is required to be individually strapped down, and not bunched together then tied down.

· Only after this installation and double check procedure is completed should the track be powered up to full speed and duty cycle.

Its always a good idea to recheck the chain after a few hours at full speed incase any of the cables have slipped or stretched while running at full speed.

What is cable drag chain?

Cable drag chain is also called cable carrier, which is mainly designed to cover the cable wire on machine, it can also cover the water and oil hose. Why did those cable wires need to be covered? In the industry environment, cable wire can be in a mess, in long term fastly machine movement, every cable and related wire occurs uneven pull and winding, sometimes the manufacture process will produce small shaving, soil and other industrial pollutants, it is easily attached on the cable and resulting in corrosion damage.
 

Why use cable drag chain?

Install cable drag chains can reduce dust generation from cable friction, dust generation will damage the electronic parts on the precision machine, and dust generation will also decrease durability of machine but increase the repair charge. If the factory has higher demand like clean room, small dust can more effect to the yield, in order not to cause this kind of damage, installing cable drag chain is a good choice, and it can also reduct the cost.
 

How to choose the cable drag chain material? 

Usually, it is difficult to recognized the material quality of the cable drag chain, some bad supplier mix the recycle and new material to manufacture the cable drag chain, but the mix material will have big difference from the new one on the anti-wear ability, please follow below item to judge the material quality :

Friction the surface by hard material

Friction good material will generate powder, friction bad material will generate bigger paticle.

Observe the surface of cable drag chain

Good material looks smoothly, bad material looks roughly and not uniform.

Touch the surface of cable drag chain

Good material touchs smoothly, bad material touchs roughly and not uniform.

Advantages after install cable drag chain on industrial equipment 

Install cable drag chain on dynamic cable can make the movement of cables predictable, it not only provide high tensile load and resistance ability, such as: oil-resistance, corrosion-resistance. Choose enclosed type cable drag chain will prevent the cable from pollution by environment, which increase the convience of arrange cable and reduce the noise while machine working, the working environment will also become clean and well ordered.
 

Where do we need cable drag chain?

Install cable drag chain on different machine has many advantages, such as: Industrial automation system, manufacturing product line, automated robotic arm and different large machines, there are different kind and different kind of material of cable drag chain in order to cope with different industrial need.

General type

Suitable for general type factory environment, provide basic anti-pull and wire arrange function.

Enhance type

Enhance each nod to increase the ability suffering from heavy loading.

Enclosed type

Suitable for the environment which lots of scrap, the enclosed type cable drag chain is not easily to attached scrap which will cause the motion not smooth.

Metal type

Cable drag chain material is engineering plastic wrap by stainless steel, it moves more quiet and it also prevent from small scrap.

 

Conclusion

Are you annoying about factory machine repairing, material wasting, working environment cleanning? Choose the right cable drag chain can not only reduce the machine repair charge and save the money and human resource, but also look neat and clean, to know more about cable drag chain detail information, please click