Product category:
Electrical systems
News Release from: Igus UK | Subject: 'Chainflex' CF98 control cables
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 22 February 2006
Alloyed conductor control cable is
highly flexible
Alloyed conductor control cables are made from a special alloy and tests prove the cable will remain intact in an energy chain, at a bending radius of less than 4d, over more than 30 million cycles.
igus' 'Chainflex' CF98 control cables are proving themselves already in energy chain applications in confined installation spaces Shanghai Novel Color Picture Tube Co, a Chinese subsidiary of the electronics giant Novel, has been successfully using the cables for narrow bending radii in its plant in the south-western district of Shanghai City since October 2004
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 28 Apr 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The cable's conductors are manufactured from a special alloy and tests prove the cable will remain intact in an energy chain, at a bending radius of less than 4d (diameter), over more than 30 million cycles.
Chainflex CF98 consists of a highly abrasion-resistant, gusset-filled, extruded TPE outer jacket.
It is specifically developed for very small cross-sections with extremely narrow radii.
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In the booming People's Republic of China, Novel Color Picture is a highly modern, internationally oriented electronics company that develops and manufactures colour picture tubes, among other products.
The company produces flat shadow masks for colour picture tubes together with Toshiba and Mitsui, both based in Japan.
Novel also manufactures colour monitors for gaming machines in association with Shanghai Electric Co The company is certified in compliance with ISO 9002 and 2,200 employees work on a production area of approximately 150,000m2.
Production targets, for six different sizes of colour picture tube, equate to 4.4 million units per annum.
The automated stacking system for phosphorous monitors has broken down several times in the past at the Novel plant in Shanghai.
Maintenance engineers discovered the control cable - which had a cross-section of 3 x 0.25mm2 and was running alongside two air pipes - was defective.
Yang Rong, in charge of lean production at the plant, explains: "The distance the cable travels amounts to only 1m at 300,000 cycles per month.
The system is located in quite a small space.
The bending radius of the energy chain is just 18mm." The control cable, with its copper conductor, was not able to stand up to the mechanical loads in the energy chain under such confined space conditions.
After operating for just one week, the system had to be shut down for more than 20 minutes in order to replace the cable.
Yang reveals: "We have eight stacking tables of the same type in our facility.
The same problem came up everywhere: malfunctions in the power supply to monitors." He estimates the costs of operational failures, due to system downtimes, come to RMB 70,000 (about EUR 6,500): "Which are, even according to conservative estimates, RMB 0.8 million (about EUR 75,000 EUR) per year." Since the installation of the Chainflex CF98.02.03 (diameter: 5mm), which has been certified and tested to a bending radius of only 4d, there has never been another operational failure at the Shanghai plant.
The special design differs to conventional cables by the conductor material used.
Copper in cables is typically used in the majority of conductor designs.
However, the alloyed conductor of Chainflex CF98 is softer in terms of its molecular structure.
It does not become brittle and fragile as quickly as copper conductors do in confined, rough environments.
As a result, the new alloy achieves a longer service life.
In tests performed in the igus laboratory, no damage to the conductors was detected - even at bending radii of 3.2d after more than 30 million cycles.
In more than 25 subsidiaries worldwide, Chainflex CF98 is available ex-stock, without extra cutting costs or surcharges for small quantities. Request a free brochure from Igus UK ...
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