flexible wire

Anyone who has ever owned a Volvo 240 wagon will know that there's one
really annoying design flaw in an otherwise nearly bulletproof car. All
the wiring for the rear wiper, power lock, defogger, center brake light
and license plate lights passes through the hinges so that it gets bent
90 degrees each time the tailgate is opened resulting in a need to
replace the tailgate wiring harnesses about once every 5 years. I've
seen some people wire around the hinges but that just looks tacky to me.
I'm curious if there's any modern super flexible wire out there that can
hold up to this repeated flexing? 18 AWG is fine, none of them carry a
particularly high current. There's room for a bundle about the diameter
of a pencil through each hinge. Ideas?

 

Twist up, in a drill, 6 strands or so of long lengths of 30-35AWG/35-40SWG
or so gauge and cut into 3. Plait up those 3 lengths and then cut in 3 and
plait together the 3 lengths of that intermediate. Keeping the "flat" side
in the same sense which will be the sense through which the hinge action
takes place.

 

**Multi-Contact make a VERY tough, very flexible, 512 strand, silicon
sheathed wire which will last the distance. Farnell carry it. You may need
to buy quite a bit though.

 

Hmm, interesting, ok, I should specify though, anything I can get in the
US? Farnell may be willing to ship over here, but there's gotta be
something local.

 

Could probably be done, but I'm sure it would require some fabrication
and bodywork, it'd be easier to just replace the wiring harnesses every
few years.

I'll look into test lead wire, might hold up ok.

 

Imagine a steel whire that is constantly flexed at one point.
-----------------
^
Now imagine the same wire whose flex point is made into a helix.
----(((((((((----
^
The stress is spread out and fatigue is greatly reduced.
This sort of thing is done all the time on glass doors / burglar
alarms
and by musicians (guitarists' coily cords).

Use RTV to have the coily part retain its form.
Use multi-filar windings as required.
No need to even change the existing color code.

 

**Here in Australia, we use this thing called 'Google'.

www.google.com

It is brilliant. You can find pretty much anything you want. Anyway, type in
'farnell us' into the little box. From that you get a link to:

http://www.newark.com/cable-wire-accessories

 

Thanks smartass.

I figured I'd search for the product when I get home, unless someone
knew of a particularly good place to get it. I get sick of these snide
"google it" replies, if you don't have a helpful answer, don't reply at
all. Half the time Google is useless from all the stupid sites that hook
searches and lead to unrelated crap, particularly if you don't know the
general name of what you're looking for, and for many things that varies
by region.

 

This is just a tailgate problem ?

Use silicone insulated wire like used in test leads but make sure you
protect it well with an overall sleeve.

Graham

 

Silicone if I may be so bold.

It's excellent stuff.

Don't forget additional PVC sheathing.

Graham

 

Just learn to refine the 'search terms' and all that crap will go away. It just
needs a bit of intelligence, that's all.

For example did you know you can use a minus term in the search ? Such as -fuckwit
?

Graham

 

His email addy says 'trashmail', so I guess he lives in a trash can ?

Graham

 

If you bothered to check out trashmail.net, you'd find that it's an
email forwarding service. After my previous email account become so
flooded with spam that it was nearly unusable, I set up a number of
disposable forwarding accounts to my new one. If I start getting a bunch
of spam on one, I can kill it and switch to another while still
maintaining the same private email account.

Unlike some, this is not completely anonymous, nor is it munged in any
way. Send an email to the trashmail address and it will land in my inbox.

 

Yes I'm well aware of how to use Google, I've been using it since it
first appeared on the scene. I only asked because I thought someone
might happen to think "hey I know just the thing, I bought some
from...." and save the searching and guesswork, failing that, I'll find
it myself. Apparently people would rather make snide remarks rather than
being helpful of keeping quiet.

Either way, I found what I needed, to the rest of you, forget I even asked.

 

Just get a GMail account. I use it without munging all the time. I get
thousands of spam messages piling up in my spam folder, but I can't
remember the last time that a spam message reached by inbox.

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

 

So why do you behave like such a shit ? A Hotmail addy works for me.

Graham

 

Yes they did and they ALL said SILICONE insulated wire.

Problem ?

Graham

 

Actually not in my experience from good knowledge of those who say simply that
in exasperation.

The trouble is that so many people aren't capable of thinking logically (or
'otside the box') that they miss the search terms that get the result they're
looking for. Imagination is the key.

Longest it's taken me with a tricky search, 5 minutes approx.

Graham

 

$-binaries.com:

.....

More and more often, usenet users block all postings from gmail accounts
and google groups postings because of all the spam and trolling that comes
from that direction.




--
bz 73 de N5BZ k

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.

remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap