I am fed up with long mains flexes that twist themselves into a tangled mess as soon as you turn your back. The biggest culprit is the vacuum cleaner with the hedge trimmer a close second, but they all seem to do it (?2 core worse than
3core). Does anyone know a source of a non-tangle flex? I've Googled 'til I'm google-eyed without success. TIA-- Richard
Richard Walker coughed up some electrons that declared:
Rubber flexes are usually better in this regard.
But I've also found "artic blue" flex quite good.
Cheers
Tim
Any cable can get in a tangle. The trick is to coil it properly for storage and unwrap carefully. Easiest cable to coil is rubber. But it's around 60% more expensive than PVC.
Learn to coil the cable properly:
as soon as you turn your back.
Heavy, round rubbery insulation and three cores not two. If it's double-insulated, still fit a three core cable.
Other than that, decent cord-storage. Make yourself a "rugby goalpost" winder from plywood and fasten some velcro straps to hold things. Coiling and uncoiling a decent cable doesn't take long and it's much quicker than untangling.
as soon as you turn your back.
I do that with hedge trimmers (although leave the earth disconnected at the double-insulated hedge trimmer, or 2-pole safety break). That way, when you slice through the cable, you generate an earth fault, with higher likelyhood of instant tripping of the RCD.
Would be good on lawn mowers too, but I've managed not to cut through any lawn mower cables as yet, so they haven't needed replacing.
ess as soon as you turn your back. The biggest
they all seem to do it (?2 core worse than
I'm google-eyed without success.
Coil them in a figure of eight shape instead of in circle.
Robert
Dave Liquorice pretended :
Coil them in a figure of eight shape instead of in circle.
Robert
It's all in the technique. Figure of 8 is one option. Other is to always start at the appliance end and as you make a turn of the coil - apply a twist. Imagine you are coiling a rope on the deck of a boat.
Is that the funny fold it in half and pull loops through loops method?
Personally something that heavy and long I'd just "figure of eight" on the ground.
It's the twist in the same direction for each loop that is the problem.
The methods I linked to earlier put a twist in the loop but adjacent loops have twists in opposite directions thus they cancel out. Effectively you are making a figure of eight in a hand held coil.
That's sometimes used for caving ropes, but with 4 thicknesses rather than two.
Great links! The "fold double" method reminds me a bit of the way my mother in law used to coil her mower cable (she used to mend WW2 bombers so I guess she might have learned it there). You have your cable spread out on the lawn after mowing. Take the plug and hitch it to the power trigger. Straighten out the rest of the cable so that it is a double length ending in a loop at the mid point. Then back to the handle, and from that end wrap the double cable around the handle (assuming you have the "pram" type U shaped handle). It's usually less than a dozen loops so doesn't generate too much twist. Secure by knotting the mid-point loop around the windings. Unhitching is the reverse process (and reverses the twist). This does depend on having something to wrap the cable around, though.
It is horses for courses, though. I keep power cable on a drum, and wrap up the fifteen feet of Cat 5 which lives in my laptop case using the elbow method; it doesn't unravel because it lives in a document slot. But that's definitely the way for mike, speaker, and guitar cables.
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Ah, as soon as you said that I knew what you meant - chaining them. Must admit, I'd not use that method for extension cables. Might consider folding, a la climbing rope, though.
Not seen that last one before either.
Learnt the 'single twist' method during years of coiling hydralic hoses on pressure washers, works on rope & cable too.
Some of the others seem over complicated to me.
You can buy plastic ones from B&Q for a squid, sans velcro, but with clips. Tough as old boots.
Don't like drums for power cables far to much of temptation to only pull off what you want and leave the rest coiled up. Put a significant load on (for some value of significant) and the cable on the drom can get rather warm insulation melt or even catch fire...
Bet it doesn't lie nicely though, creating trip a hazard. Mind you CAT5 patch cable is not nicely behaved cable at the best of times but mistreating with the "elbow wind" must make it even worse.
Personally anything coiled gets the twist/counter twist method. From
3' patch cables to the garden hose.
An old friend used to wreck Hoovers, Hair Driers, irons --just about everthing - his family all used the same method (Genetic maybe) of unlugging the item and wrapping the flex around their elbow - working from the plug end. The resulting twisted lump at the applience end eventually gave up the struggle and broke.
Incidentally - I am trying to imagine how to develop a flex that wouldn't twist. I don't think it could be done - if the technique is wrong then it will twist. (or it ain't flex)
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I used to have some Sennheiser headphones where the lead wouldn't twist. At some point, I tried to change the plug on the cable, and found that the conductors in the wire were something springy which you couldn't solder.
Something which you see for phones occasionally is a cable entry or adapter which allows the cable to twist freely.
Could be something similar to GPO style patch cords used on old exchanges
- and audio jackfields. The conductors are woven round a fabric core.
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