Ceeco Machinery Manufacturing Limited

Roteq Machinery Inc.

Southwire Company, LLC

Andrew Blackmore

Michael Marshall

Paul White

Steven R Campbell

A concentric strander has an elongate concentric shaft that defines a shaft axis and supports for rotatably supporting the concentric shaft. A number of wire bobbins are spaced at substantially equal intervals along the shaft to form spaces between the bobbins. Each bobbin has an axis substantially coextensive with the shaft axis for rotation about the shaft, and each bobbin has a maximum radial diameter. The strander has take-off sheaves, mounted on the shaft, that are associated with a wire bobbin and that take the wires from the bobbins and guide them to a point radially outwardly beyond the maximum predetermined radial bobbin diameter. The take-off sheaves subsequently guide the wires in a direction substantially parallel to the shaft axis and define, on rotation of the concentric shaft, a cylindrical envelope. At a downstream end of the shaft, the strander has a closing device that receives the wires from the bobbins and applies them on a core. A drive rotates the shaft, and the wire take-off sheaves are rotated by the interaction between the sheaves and the paid-off advancing wires. The interbobbin spaces needed to support the wire take-off sheaves have axial dimension substantially independent of the diameters of the wires to be processed by the strander.

Compact universal concentric strander with take-off sheaves mounted on strander shaft

A concentric tape applicator has a support shaft that defines an axis and includes a structure for supporting a tape pad for rotation with the support shaft about the axis. Guide rollers are mounted on the support shaft for rotation concentrically about the axis for guiding tape from the tape pad for application to an elongated member advancing along the axis relative to the support shaft. A drive is directly coupled to the guide elements. A differential clutch is provided that has an input shaft directly coupled to the drive and an output shaft coupled to the support shaft for applying braking forces to the pad. A feedback circuit is provided for sensing the speed of rotation of the pad and applying a feedback signal to the clutch for regulating the excitation of the clutch to maintain a substantial uniform tension on the tape dispensed from the pad so potentially independently of the amount of tape remaining on the pad.

Concentric tape applicator

In an apparatus for cable manufacture, a cage strander rotates about a line axis at a chosen rotational speed. Bobbins supported by the strander dispense round conductors downstream of the cage strander. A forming apparatus downstream of the strander receives the conductors and forms them into many complementary segmented preshaped wires each having the desired cross-sectional profile in a final compact conductor. The conductors are positioned in a way that substantially corresponds to the orientations among wires in the final conductor. A first drive rotates the forming apparatus about the line axis substantially at the rotational speed of the strander. A second drive drives the forming apparatus. The drives are synchronized so that the conductors close about the core and cause the sides of adjacent wires to abut against each other to produce both the desired lay and a cable substantially without interstices between the wires forming the twisted conductor.

Apparatus for and method of manufacturing compacted cables by use of rigid cage stranders

Concentric Compressed Unilay Stranded Conductors are formed of certain combinations of compressed wires, such as 1+7+12, 1+6+11 or 1+7+12+17, which have nominally equal diameters. The combinations of conductors or wires are selected so that the number of wires in any two adjacent layers, including a central layer, are not divisible by a common number with the exception of the integer one. The stranded conductors are optionally formed to have sectored cross-sectional configurations.

Concentric compressed unilay stranded conductors

A method of and an apparatus for balancing a multi-bay cabler system when less than all of the cabler frame bays are supplied with a supply bobbin are disclosed. The apparatus comprises a mechanical counterweight system which compensates for a depleting strand supply during operation of the cabler system, thereby equalizing centrifugal loading within the rotating strander frame and maintaining its dynamic balance at full design speed during the cable assembly operation. The counterweight system is installed in a bobbin-carrying cradle of an unused cabler frame bay. According to a first embodiment, the counterweight is driven in a linear path relative to the cradle in a direction normal to the rotational axis of the cabler frame. According to a second embodiment, the counterweight is driven in an arc relative to its supporting cradle. A control system analyzes an out-of-balance condition and effects a repositioning of the counterweight to maintain the rotating cabler frame in dynamic balance as the bobbin supply is payed out from the rotating frame. Alternatively, the control system may include a computer which positions the counterweight based on a control algorithm.

Method of and apparatus for balancing the load of a cabling apparatus

Concentric Compressed Unilay Stranded Conductors are formed of certain combinations of compressed wires, such as 1+7+12, 1+6+11 or 1+7+12+17, which have nominally equal diameters. The combinations of conductors or wires are selected so that the number of wires in any two adjacent layers are not divisible by a common number with the exception of the integer one. Compression of wires in one or more layers is such as to provide area reductions within the range from 0 to approximately 19% for the layers affected.

An 'outside-in' double twist bow buncher includes a cradle which supports two wire receiving bobbins. Wire guides are provided at both axial ends of the machine for receiving and guiding two separate groups of wires and, with a traverse mechanism, laying each group of wires onto a respective bobbin.

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King City, CA, United States of America

Andrew Blackmore