Wire rope clamps

[James Remo]

I’m looking for a specific type of wire rope clamp, that could be used to secure a Martin Sceptron to a drop wire, effectively making a ‘soft ladder’ where the sceptron form the rungs of the ladder. Ideally it would clamp onto about an inch of swr, so the units don’t twist downwards under their own weight, and have a hole for an m6 bolt to attach through, as I would like to bolt to the extrusion directly. My internet searches only turn up wire rope grips of various designs, nothing really suitable. Any pointers of more specific search terms or products that might fit the bill? Thanks in advance

James

[david.elsbury]

Have you looked at the Reutlinger product range?

[James Remo]

Something like the type 25 Bo6 might work, but I'd want to use a larger gauge swr than 2mm for this application. It has to be tour worthy, bumping in and out of festivals all summer

[ontoprigger]

if you were to use the type 50 M12 Reutlinger it has an M12 thread on the bottom where you could bolt on an angled bracket like the one in the link to give you 2 M6 fixing holes.

 

https://www.reutlinger.de/en/products/rigging/item/holder-type-50-sv-iii-m12

 

https://www.supplyforce.com/4016560/product/ifm-efector-u20301

[James Remo]

The A rig will require roughly 300 of these, whilst the reutlinger is a wonderful unit, and I already own a bunch of the type 80, its massively over engineered for this application, and would blow the budget sky high. A simple clamp made of two plates and a bolt is more what I had in mind, with the plates having a saddle and bump profile for clamping onto the SWR. I've seen the type of unit so I know they exist, akin to half a bike seat mount, about the size of a speaker clamp. The idea is the soft ladders drop directly into road trunks for transport, and a clunky reutlinger would likely damage the diffusers if rattling around in the box on the truck.

[ninjadingle]

How about this? Mini Wire Rope Mounting Clamp - the KL3 seems to do what you want?

[James Remo]

How about this? Mini Wire Rope Mounting Clamp - the KL3 seems to do what you want?

 

Looks good! A lot neater than what I had in mind, I do worry the batten might droop as it’s going to stand off a little, but worth buying a bunch to try out. Anyone else have any suggestions?

[DrV]

If you used the kl2 in conjunction with the "optional sliding bracket for M12 bolt" and put the kl2 and swr inside the bracket, the cable would be closer to the centre of gravity of the Sceptron which would help to reduce the droop you mentioned.

Edit: I meant KL2-6.

Edited April 4, 2019 by DrV

[Seano]

A simple clamp made of two plates and a bolt is more what I had in mind, with the plates having a saddle and bump profile for clamping onto the SWR.

 

Something along those lines was the first idea that came into my head. But a bit simpler still. Two square or rectangular plates, each with two 6mm holes and perhaps a slight groove between the holes. Sandwich the wire between the plates, one 6mm bolt each side of the wire goes directly through both plates and into the extrusion in the back of the unit.

 

I imagine it would need to be a custom fab, but v simple so shouldn't be expensive in anything other than tiny quantities. You'd need to do a bit of due diligence, some testing possibly, perhaps consult an engineer. All a bit of a faff possibly, but I doubt you'd find a neater solution off the shelf.

 

Anyone else have any suggestions?

 

"Zip-clip strut-lock" might be a search term worth bunging into google. Not totally unlike a much smaller, much cheaper Reutlinger. I think it's only for 2mm wire though.

[James Remo]

The last time this design went out they used doughty modular frames, now it’s heading to festival season it needs to be refined and faster to deploy. I figured I might find exactly what I envisaged on a shelf somewhere, but I guess the custom fab route wouldn’t be too time consuming, as long as I can prototype and get it signed off within the next month. The zip-clip stuff looks interesting, thanks

[kerry davies]

A friend has just finished building a study centre and used a variety of similar fixings which he found by googling "wire rope balustrades". I don't really understand what you need but worth a ten minute surf?

[david.elsbury]

Awfully sorry. It wasn’t clear from your OP that you wanted 300 of them, or that a Reutlinger solution would be too expensive for you. It’s obviously a very good solution, being manufactured for that purpose; but clearly not what you want.

[James Remo]

Just to follow up on this; we ended up sourcing the flat plates from U bolt fixings. Worked exceptionally well, two days to prep and pretty much zero maintenance all summer.

 

Video with the reduced (5 drops only) setup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYS2Z6bHbvE

Edited October 24, 2019 by James Remo

[ninjadingle]

That looks immense, great work and thanks for following up (all too often these threads have loads of solutions proposed but no feedback on what actually worked).