I'm sure everyone has encountered some kind of tangled cord nightmare, be it at their job or in their home work spaces.
In public access workshops, like TechShop, we are always looking for ways to improve our tool organization and storage so that items are easily found and stay in top working order.
Here is a simple, easy, and neat way to wrap up the cords for all your power tools without putting unnecessary stress on your cables or brain!
In public access workshops, like TechShop, we are always looking for ways to improve our tool organization and storage so that items are easily found and stay in top working order.
Here is a simple, easy, and neat way to wrap up the cords for all your power tools without putting unnecessary stress on your cables or brain!
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Several commenters have claimed that coiling once introduces a 180º twist. In my cords, coiling once introduces a 360º twist.
Which is why I agree totally with the comments from pfred2. Electrical cords of any and all types should NEVER be tightly wound.
I have dropped many miles of electrical cables, microphone cords, speaker cables and others in and around, up and down more different types of locations then you can imagine.
Any sailor I caught tightly coiling anything was risking no liberty. The rule of thumb we used was you stretched a length of cable/wire the length of your reach arms outstretched, this was the size of the loop. Cables that got used a lot would typically have a length of rope secured to the cable that was used both to keep the cable coiled and as a means to hand the coil on a peg or hook.
As I pointed out above, every two coils in a cord leads to a 360° twist in the cord. This twisting (and consequent untwisting) is what strains the metal/plastic in the cord, and leads to its eventual failure. Most cords and cables are actually quite good at resisting damage from bending, and the strain reliefs at either end further protect against this damage. But they do not protect against the torsional forces that lead to elongation stretching, that DOES damage the cable or cord.
This is (one of a number of reasons) why well-trained sound technicians always counter-wrap expensive cords.
I do not have any thinner tools than my 4 inch grinder so I do not have to worry about any tension wrapping the cord around the tool. I cannot wait for the - how to wrap your extension cable.
Putting all of this together makes for some pretty good reasons to never treat tools like pros do! Not unless you have a pro budget to bankroll you that is.
Now to specifically address what I'm seeing here, if you bend a power cord in a tight radius like is pictured here, then leave it for some length of time, you're going to impart line memory to the cords fairly quickly. I'm not a big fan of wrinkled cords personally so I wrap my cords in loose natural loops, then tie them with little pieces of twisted wire, that I care much less about than my power tool cords. Any amount of bending a cord where it shows resistance is enough to stress the cord material.
Cords and cables mostly get strain damage as a result of end to end twisting, which happens as a consequence of coiling. Each coil introduces one half (180°) twist into a cable or cord) Using large loops helps minimize this, but NOT because it increases circumference (and radial angle) but rather because it minimizes end over end twisting. Coiling a cable or cord into 8 loops introduces 4 complete 360° twists along its length. Coiling the same cable or cord 20 times increases this to 10. Uncoiling the cable twists it back the other way. Coiling and uncoiling the cable or cord eventually leads to strain damage. On cables, this often takes the form or a break in the ground sheath at the cable, and on cords, it usually manifests itself as a break in the insulation at the strain relief end, which then progresses to actual damage to the cord itself.
Also, there is no such thing as "natural loops". Loops appear in cords as a result of them being stored in that configuration. Often this starts at manufacture, where the cord is shipped to the manufacturer on spools.
The only way to prevent this is to counter-wrap the cable or cord. Most well-trained sound techs learn this from early on, as audio cables are expensive, and they are trained from the beginning how to counter-wrap cords.
If there is not a counter wrap instructable, maybe someone should do one.
Most every time you find yourself using the overhand knot, ask yourself if you will ever want to untie that knot. If the answer is yes, the figure-8 is your knot.
Once you've put any kind of load on an overhand knot, it is nearly always there to stay. Even if you do get it untied, it is likely that you have severely weakened the cord/wire/cable/etc. by wrapping it a circle only slightly larger than it's diameter. An inside to outside radius ratio that guarantees high tension forces on the outside of the cord as well as high friction forces on the internal radius. Neither of those scenarios is good for the safety of something that transmits lethal forces.
That said, with careful handling of your power tools, I would consider using this idea in the absence of velcro ties. Certainly for power cords that don't have a weighted pendulum on the end.
Keep the ideas coming KaceyK!
I am forever untangling leads when other people have no clue how to coil them up correctly!
I never thought of it as an instructable so it seem like you did .Well done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure-eight_knot_(ropes)
I think that wins the Least Macho Comment award...
Wrapping power cords has always been a pain in the...you know. Such a simple solution.
Well done!