Industrial cables don't last by accident. Long-term performance comes down to the right combination of material selection, cable construction, and engineering expertise with rigorous design standards. From conductor stranding and lay lengths to high-performance compounds and fluoropolymer insulation, every intentional design choice affects how a cable withstands flexing, abrasion, heat, chemicals, and constant motion in harsh industrial environments.
In this video, Amphenol TPC experts pull back the curtain to reveal really makes high-performance cables last longer in the field. They discuss the engineering decisions, supplier partnerships, and material innovations behind durable cable designs built for extreme applications. Watch the full video to learn the secrets behind cables engineered to survive where others fail:
Transcript:
[On-screen text: What are the key ingredients for our products' longevity?]
To me, the key ingredients for ATPC products' longevity are the construction of the cable and the material selection.
For example, our Trex-Onics® products like C-Flex, we don't have to put a fluoropolymer insulation on that, but for flexing applications, it's probably the best choice, or one of the best choices to get the performance. And that's kind of what we're all about; performance. So it's more expensive, no doubt about it, but performance wise, it's top notch. So we have discussions like that... Lay lengths! Proper lay lengths mean a lot as far as performance, depending on if it's torsional, depending on if it's more like a cat track or cable carrier assembly, so things of that nature.
Stranding... Obviously, the finer the strand, you get a more flexible product. So there's a lot to that, but to me, it's also all about the selection of materials and construction. You know, something we've talked about in front of our reps a lot of times is that there's a lot of CPE [chlorinated polyethylene] compounds out there. There's a lot of PVCs [polyvinyl chlorides] out there. There's a lot of everything, but PVC is a good example. There are so many different compounds of PVC. We could choose a less expensive one and sell our cable cheaper, but it's probably not going to perform how we want it to. So we choose something that's maybe a little bit more expensive and gives us better performance. Same thing with the rubbers.
Say I have a CPE compound jacket. Well, that gives you the basics, but it doesn't tell you the performance. You know, you can have a relatively poor performing CPE or a strong performing CPE. I think one of the other things we've been fortunate to do is that we've aligned ourselves with some really good suppliers that had strong engineering. And they were also open to new ideas. You know, I remember sitting in meetings where they say, "hey, have you guys looked at these new materials?" Or, "have you looked at this?" Or Tim is always bringing up, you know, "there's a new material out by Lubrizol." "Have you guys looked at this or experimented with this?" So we've grown with our suppliers. We've challenged our suppliers. And in most cases, they've responded to those challenges and been able to support us as we've continued to grow. And as new compounds have come out, I would say we've educated our suppliers.
They could choose to ignore it or they could choose to embrace it. I think in more cases than not, they embraced it and we've both sort of grown together in a lot of those areas.
But even to add on to the supplier part, though, that is important. We kind of take it for granted, but the wrong supplier can put you in a bad position. We've been really fortunate there.
Yeah, you want suppliers to be as innovative as we try to be.
And it's more than just the materials as well. I mean, we talk about designs. I can sit down and talk to them about the best way that I think we should approach a design. One of the things that drives our company is high performance. We've talked about that for years, years, years, and years. And when I see high performance, I'm talking about things like a cable that you can build to virtually live in any kind of condition. So the worst conditions are these dynamic applications where cables are moving everywhere so you want to get the stresses correct inside the cables so that you don't have one particular member that's that's being overstressed that makes it fail. You want it all to to live a long life so that helps make that happen. We sit down and talk to the suppliers about, "hey, how do I position things? Where do I put them, what materials do I use?"
When Dave was talking about our Trex-Onics® products where we use fluoropolymers, one of the key things about fluoropolymers is that they have a very high coefficient of friction, so the word that i use is "lubricity." It allows the cable to move. It gives it some wiggle room, so to speak, so that's what happens when we choose the right materials. We put the cable design together correctly to make it last longer for our customers.