Additional stranding capabilities to support medical components manufacturing have been developed at Sandvik Palm Coast. The additional stranding equipment operates within the wire diameter range 0.0009 to 0.003 inches (0.02286 mm to 0.0762 mm) and rotational capacity of 10 twists per inch (4 Twists per cm) to 40 turns per inch (16 twists per cm).
Stranded cables are formed by wrapping multiple single ended wires together or by twisting multi-filar wires to form a single bundled entity.
- The additional process equipment allows us to serve our customers with a product that has higher precision and additional overall capacity than was available in the past. We expect the increased process speeds and better yields to a more competitive price structure as well, says Gary Davies, BU Medical Manager and PU Manager at Sandvik Palm Coast.
The individual single strands that comprise the multi-filar cable can be bare or individually coated prior to cabling. The overall stranded cable can also be overcoated with a polymer or PTFE after the cabling operation.
Stranded cables provide a more flexible and versatile wire-based solution than single ended wires because strands can deform and move independently versus the bulk medium and different base metals or alloys can be incorporated into the cable. The flexibility in the configuration can allow for wire configurations such as coils and other wire forms that are not possible with an equivalent single wire. Aside from coil-based solutions such as telemetry and induction applications, stranded cables can be used in thermocouples and as ground wires.
