Badly coiled cables

[sunray]

It's not hard!

I guess in the pro field you'd expect a better than average outcome, but maybe that's not the case!Kevin

Let's get this straight, in the pro field several things should happen at get out. 'Helpers' should:

Ask how leads should be coiled.

Ask how big they should be coiled.

Not get knarked when told they are doing it wrong.

Not pull harder when a cable seems to be trapped.

Observe how the owner/senior tech/supervisor does it.

I'm sure I've missed stuff out but I'm not trying to teach to suck eggs

.

I have made people re-coil cables before. Not often, but occasionally I just can't cope with it any longer.

The most frustrating thing, though, is when you're working on a show and the more senior techs can't coil cables properly - I was on one where the foh engineer's coiling was unequal sizes and lots of figure 8s in it.

Funny thing is that unequal size and allowing a cable to figure eight will generally make it easier to uncoil the next time.

Personally my 'biggest cables' by lentghXthickness are 100m of 6mm mains, swiftly followed by 50m of 4mm SY, from the very first use they have been coiled in long figure eight loops of 4 to 5 feet. I have never allowed anyone else to coil things this big as I've seen the damage too often. When used the next time I  lay the skein on the floor and walk away with the end (either end just by turning the skein over) or to leave the end and take the skein with me.

I never get someone to recoil a cable, if they can't do it right first time they will usually make it worse and add more twists when they uncoil it, I find it easier to ask them to leave than train them.

 

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say my stuff is big. I help out on big rigs too

[ojc123]

But there is a "knack" to it to keep with the natural lay of the cable.

Over years of teaching students to coil cables I've discovered that there are those who listen when the cables talk and those who carry on mechanically. It's a definite knack.

[paulears]

Let's be honest here - the cable in the topic has not been mishandled, it's a shrinkage problem in the jacket, and they're not the kinds of kinks that you can twist out. It's a fault, not bad use. The visible wear and tear, however ..........

[sunray]

Let's be honest here - the cable in the topic has not been mishandled, it's a shrinkage problem in the jacket, and they're not the kinds of kinks that you can twist out. It's a fault, not bad use. The visible wear and tear, however ..........

Except that the 4 50m lengths that I had did not have a shrinkage problem and did not go curly, the reason We got rid was the wear from being dragged along hard surfaces and the cracks/splits from being tied on fixings and being suspended or being run pulled across a sharp edge. The only cables that I've owned that have gone curly like that hve been wound incorrectly, mostly around the arm.

[paulears]

The ones I've come across many times, were figure 8'd into cable trunks and could never have been tight looped. The one in the picture is a classic plastic problem - look at the twists - they are identical in shape size and diameter as the different plastics have shrunken with the internal lay causing the distortion. These cables simply cannot be straightened and just started to twist like this gradually getting worse and worse.

[sunray]

The ones I've come across many times, were figure 8'd into cable trunks and could never have been tight looped. The one in the picture is a classic plastic problem - look at the twists - they are identical in shape size and diameter as the different plastics have shrunken with the internal lay causing  the distortion. These cables simply cannot be straightened and just started to twist like this gradually getting worse and worse.

I'll not dispute your findings, I haven't found the same issues you have and can only quote my experience.

First off I am a small time guy with modest kit, I don't have huge multicores but I work with people who do. Most of my work is fetes/sports events and probably more than 50% outdoors. These days I do more work as a subby than my own jobs and I find many of the jobs are bigger systems and require lots of long cable runs to link areas together etc. One of the jobs I've done for about 12 years is 5 interlinked systems which requires around 500m of link cables. As such I feel my genre it not 'typical' of the majority of other BRers. Some of my cables still in use are 60 years old, I have 3 100m mic leads  from Silver Jubilee year (1977) on BT dropwire cable reels with centres of less than 3", I had the 4 50m 2 pairs version of the OP's cable on cheap CPC cable reels for a while - the cables outlived multiple changes of cable reel of this sort of quality: https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-elec/8062/240v-cable-drum-twin-16a-sockets/dp/PL01345 (but without mains sockets) before the sheaths failed (IMO this particular cable is not as suitable as other types for portable work), multiple drums of mains and speaker cables, I purchased a number of 20m mics cables from Norman Rose in the 80's which have been fore & back bundled and none of the above have ever exhibited the same symptoms as OP's picture.

Any cables that have gone that way,  which is vanishingly small, I've been able to recollect back to when they'd been incorrectly coiled as the symptoms start showing very quickly.

Now the interesting point that I am able to quote, around the mid 90's I was contracted to make up a series of multicores and used a 500m drum of FSJ32 (yes horrible stuff compared to what's available now) for a number of them, they were placed into trunks and joined the hire stock. Very quickly one came back off hire in a sort of coil rather than 8'ed, it never laid straight again and very quickly twisted up to the point it was scrapped within a year and stripped for the single pairs for rack building etc. The other 3 lasted a long time, one of which I was surprised to be using about 5 years ago albeit in a sorry looking state with faulty pairs, different ends and no longer fit for hire but it was nowhere near as curled as OP's pic.

[paulears]

The story was that (and this is from memory) there was a batch of cables made that had a polymer problem in the materials used in manufacture. Perfectly normal looking cables, and the ones I handled were all chunky multicores, and gradually they started to deform. I saw them in cases, and other that would no longer wind onto the drums. Tye odd thing with the drum ones was that it was only the turns that were straightened that really warped. You'd see a big reel - with 50m of 24/8 multi on it, but clearly only the first 30 odd metres was normally wound out. This would be very curly at the far end, and gradually get better until the last never used few metres would be perfectly coiled on the drum. Other people who had the cable in a fig 8 in a big trunk over a couple of posts were terrible. I think the worst was one that when uncoiled and run down the aisle, it was in places so tall it was impossible to stop being a trip hazard. No way would it be able to go across a gangway - even covered in thick carpet. The outer plastic of theses cables was very very stiff and resisted bending. It was, from memory, just one batch of the chemicals used to make the cable - but it was 100% a fault in manufacture, and nothing to do with use. I saw lots of these in the 2000's, and gradually people replaced them with ones that behaved properly. They behaved more like hose pipes than cables.

 

I've tried to find the info ion the fault and can't at the moment.

[indyld]

I have a personal, based-at-home, H07RNF 20 metre 13A > 13A that I made with cable off a huge bulk drum with brand new cable and Duraplug connectors. It's been around for well over 16 years but has had light duties powering the odd drill, jigsaw or Hoovering the car. I am the only person that has ever coiled it.

 

It's still twisty twisty. It's an issue with the sheath and conductors.

[IainB]

Does anyone have a link to the 'correct' way to coil cables, I am very small fry in this world, but would like to follow best practice where I can

[OddSocks]

Link would be great.

I keep getting told I'm doing it wrong, but no one can tell me why.

I have always looped longer cable ( 2m+ ) round my arm. Never done it tight and in the 37 years I've been doing it I've not had a cable go down through use, normaly only through external damage.

 

[indyld]

Standard pro way to coil small diameter lighting mains cable is hand to hand, allowing the cable to twist slightly to produce something like an evenly-sized spring of loops. This means laying the cable loops in a good order in the hand, from inside to outside, not using the previous coils to wrap the new loop of cable and getting wider and wider in a spiral.

 

With very long cables, it is common to make a load of loops until your hand gets full, then hang the loops on your forearm and start coiling again until the cable is all coiled.

 

Over-under is much better for signal/audio/video/network cable and it kinda hard to explain even in person! You are basically making single loops but they are laying in a doubled-over figure of eight by the time you've finished. It's probably best described as loop, inside-out loop, loop, inside-out loop. There are YouTube videos on it.

 

Large multicore or heavy mains is coiled on the floor, flicking the cable into loops. Into roadboxes, a figure of eight in the box is common for large cables and looms.

[paulears]

I got some more info and it was mainly the Van Damme Blue cable, late 90's and not just the multicores, but their speaker cable did the exact same thing.

[Superpants]

I got some more info and it was mainly the Van Damme Blue cable, late 90's and not just the multicores, but their speaker cable did the exact same thing.

 

Just after I left Uni (late 90s) the stage crew bought a new sound rig. I remember making up a load of the speaker cables with brand new Van Damme cable which very soon went like this- even that which was in the rig and never moved from new.

 

 

 

 

 

[James Remo]

We had a bunch of the 5 way BNC looms (violet jacket) that did the same, also late 90's vintage. VDC put it down to a "manufacturing fault"

[DanSteely]

I've seen this many times on Soundcraft PSUs. For such a short cable it can only be a manufacturing fault.