Hitachi Cable, Inc.

Masaaki Aoyagi

Satoshi Mizushima

Osamu Mochizuki

Tsukasa Kasahara

Yoshinori Tsukamoto

Fumio Shimizu

Tetsuhiro Yamamoto

A flat cable having parallel portions provided alternately with twisted pair portions in the longitudinal direction of the flat cable, wherein the parallel portions include a plurality of insulated core wires aligned parallel to each other and fused to each other. The twisted pair portions include twisted pairs each having two separately insulated core wires twisted together,wherein a plurality of the twisted pair portions in their surface, backside, and left and right side faces are surrounded and laminated by at least one pressure-sensitive adhesive tape, thermally fusible tape, pressure-sensitive adhesive shield tape, or thermally fusible shield tape.

Flat cable

A twisted flat cable is provided which includes parallel fused portions and twisted pair portions alternating with the parallel fused portions. TPO (thermoplastic olefin) is used as an insulating material for an insulative layer that covers conductors to provide separately insulated conductors constituting the parallel fused portions and the twisted pair portions in the twisted flat cable. By virtue of this construction, the twisted flat cable has excellent transmission characteristics.

Twisted flat cable

A mold is disposed just behind twist ports for forming twisted pair portions of a flat cable. When a plurality of insulated conductors in their portion corresponding to a parallel portion, before fusion, of a flat cable are passed through the twist ports, the rotation of the twist ports is stopped to permit the plurality of insulated conductors to be parallel aligned with an identical pitch. The mold comprises a combination of two molds each having a plurality of grooves for accommodating therein the plurality of insulated conductors delivered from the twist ports. Upon accommodation of the plurality of insulated conductors within the grooves of the mold, fusion between adjacent insulated conductors in their insulative layers is carried out in the mold to form a parallel fused portion. The above constitution can realize a process and an apparatus for producing a flat cable that require neither a large space nor large equipment, can easily vary the spacing between parallel fused portions, and can properly fuse adjacent insulated conductors in their insulative layers to each other to form a parallel fused portion.

Process and apparatus for producing flat cable

In a flat cable including fused portions and twisted pair portions, the length of the twisted pair portions being not constant, the twist pitch of the twisted pair portions being substantially constant independently of the length of the twisted pair portions, some of the twisted pair portions being constituted by S twists with the other twisted pair portions being constituted by Z twists, the next twisted pair portion is twisted in such a manner that, when the number of twists in the S twisted pair portions in the longitudinal direction of the flat cable is added as &ldquo;plus (&plus;)&rdquo; value with the number of twists in the Z twisted pair portions being added as &ldquo;minus (&minus;)&rdquo; value, the twist sense in the next twisted pair portion is Z twist sense if the integrated value of the number of twists is plus (&plus;) while the twist sense in the next twisted pair portion is S twist sense if the integrated value of the number of twists is minus (&minus;). By virtue of the above constitution, a flat cable with the spacing of fused portions being not constant can be produced without requiring any twist back mechanism.

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Hitachi, Japan

Masaaki Aoyagi