Where to put the excess cable lengths?

Beke Nieszytka | 24. September 2019

If you are faced with the question of what to do with excess cable lengths on your system, you will quickly find terms like:

• “Excess length drawer for storing cables”
• Cable storage or cable manager
• Cable storage for excess lengths
• Cable bundle base
• Switch cabinet base to accommodate cable bundles 
• etc.

Well-known manufacturers such as Rittal, Blumenbäcker, Häwa, Jacob, Eldon, Lippert, ABB and KMK manufacture switch cabinets (wall-mounted switch cabinets, floor-standing cabinets, modular cabinets), terminal boxes, consoles as well as housings made of various materials. Plastic, aluminium, steel and stainless steel are often used for this purpose.

How do these excess lengths arise?

Before you start thinking about how to store the cable lengths that are not actually needed and which system is best suited for this purpose, it is better to start with this question: how do these excess lengths actually occur?

Probably the best known term among electricians is the “fear metre”. There is almost no installer, assembler, switch cabinet builder or apprentice who hasn’t cut a cable too short when connecting and installing it on machines and industrial plant, only to find that a few centimetres are missing when trying to connect it to the consumer.

An incisive experience – one side connected, the cable creeping through the whole system, everything neatly laid … and now this! What do we take from it? If in doubt, cut or order one or two metres longer.

Fatal – because now cables are being bought that are not needed for the machine to function. The extra long cable is cut off and transferred to the copper scrap. Or bases and storage compartments are purchased for valuable money. Added to this is the increased weight and rising transport costs as well as the not negligible topic of EMC (electromagnetic compatibility).

There is one case where there is no other way than to cut the cable a metre or two longer – the machine is located at a distance from the switch cabinet at the installation site that cannot yet be defined. The fear metre is to be regarded as a money waster, which modern CAD systems such as eplan, AutoCAD, Inventor, Solid Edge, etc. turn into a dinosaur in the industry.

With igus® readychain® and readycable® the “fear metre” is passé

igus® offers harnessed energy supply systems (readychain®), which are exactly adapted to your machine. With energy chain modules from igus®, you get ready-to-use systems equipped with hoses, cables and harnessed cables, whose excess lengths are calculated down to the centimetre between the feed and the end device.

What does that mean for you?_x000D_
 
Do not worry about possibly too short cables anymore and forget the “fear metre”! With igus® readychain® you receive your energy chain as well as harnessed cables in lengths accurate to the centimetre and can save hard cash.

All components installed in the energy chain modules from igus® are matched to each other and offer a high quality standard, which is guaranteed by igus®. Click here for more information about readychain®.

In addition to harnessed energy chains, igus® also offers ready-to-connect harnessed cables (readycable®) in the right quality for your application and in the desired length, accurate to the centimetre. Simply use our readycable® product finder to select cables with the right length and assembly for you.

You are welcome to contact our readychain® and readycable® product manager and get personal advice.