Flexible 9+2 conductor cable w. foil shield?

[Lomax]

Hi all,

I've got two Sailor DSC VHF radios (RT4822 and A1) - old (~2000) but very capable units favoured by commercial shipping & fishing, and still very much in demand on the second-hand market. I have two remote control handsets (C4900) which connect to these and give you full functionality with a built in display, but sadly the spiral cords on both of them have disintegrated completely (see photo). Since the official spare cables cost rather a lot (~€100 each) I would like to replace these with self made cables, but I'm having trouble locating a suitable cable; the original ones have 9 thin conductors (~26AWG / 0.12mm2) with a separate power pair of heavier gauge (~24AWG / 0.2mm2) and an overall foil shield. Has anyone heard of such a beast, or is it likely that S.P. Radio had it specially made for these handsets? Thoughts, pointers, suggestions - all appreciated.

Edit: I'm not really looking for coiled/spiral cable as this would probably cost more than the OEM spares... Any reasonably flexible "straight" cable will do!

[kosomsk]

Hi! Are you looking for this ? https://m.ru.aliexpress.com/item/32797004750.html

[Lomax]

Hi! Are you looking for this ? https://m.ru.aliexpress.com/item/32797004750.html

Thanks, but not quite right; it needs to be a shielded cable (foil) and it needs to have 11 (or possibly 12) conductors, two of which should be at least 0.2mm2 (for power). Also, it doesn't have to be coiled; happy to try my hand at coiling it myself, and if that doesn't work I can live with the cable being straight.

[mariush]

Maybe you could use this one, with 13 awg26 wires : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/tensility-international-corp/10-00439/839-1068-ND/2625289

Maybe in the 9+2+2 configuration, using two pairs for power.

[kosomsk]

 Bro, if you need untwisted shielded cable, that you may take any vga (thin) cable, or HDMI cable and twist him yorself 

I messed up twisted with coiled 
Sorry for my "twisted" english 

[soldar]

It probably would not be the best looking solution but you can probably rig a cable with thin conductors and add two thicker conductors. Maybe use heat-shrink tube to make it into a single cable.

In my other house I have crates full of unusual cables and I know I have a few with two thicker conductors but I don't know how many thin conductors. I'd have to check when I return in two or three weeks. If by chance I happen to have some that you can use it is yours if you pay for shipping.

I used many such cables in my past radio days.

I had some limited luck coiling cables by winding them on a form and putting them in boiling water. They would be somewhat coiled but not like the real ones. Still, it was enough to keep them out of the way of your feet in the car, etc.

[Lomax]

Thanks guys, much appreciated!

Maybe you could use this one, with 13 awg26 wires : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/tensility-international-corp/10-00439/839-1068-ND/2625289

Maybe in the 9+2+2 configuration, using two pairs for power.

Close, but not shielded. Good idea to look at "cable assemblies", I hadn't thought of that...

Bro, if you need untwisted shielded cable, that you may take any vga (thin) cable, or HDMI cable and twist him yorself 

I messed up twisted with coiled 
Sorry for my "twisted" english 

Actually, HDMI cable (4x2 + 7) is not a bad option! Certainly cheap and easy to find!

It probably would not be the best looking solution but you can probably rig a cable with thin conductors and add two thicker conductors. Maybe use heat-shrink tube to make it into a single cable.

In my other house I have crates full of unusual cables and I know I have a few with two thicker conductors but I don't know how many thin conductors. I'd have to check when I return in two or three weeks. If by chance I happen to have some that you can use it is yours if you pay for shipping.

I used many such cables in my past radio days.

I had some limited luck coiling cables by winding them on a form and putting them in boiling water. They would be somewhat coiled but not like the real ones. Still, it was enough to keep them out of the way of your feet in the car, etc.

I have considered doing this (adding separate power conductors) but it won't be pretty... For coiling cables I think you need more heat than 100C - try a hairdryer or a heat-gun on a low setting! From looking at pre-made coiled cables it looks like it's the form that gets heated up; they tend to have a flat-ish surface on the inside.

[Bratster]

Also for coiled cables, the final trick to making your own seems to be to flip the direction of the coils after you've heated up and then cooled it from the form.

Just heating and cooling on a form makes them somewhat coiled but not very springy, after you chuck the cable in a drill and spin the coils the opposite direction then it gets it springiness.

I don't remember the video off hand, but there is a tour of a coiled cable manufacturing plant and while they didn't show their official machine they did show a manual demonstration spinning the coils around with a drill and that made a massive difference.



Now back to your original question, there's no reason you have to use a cable that has multiple small conductors and a couple big ones.
Just get a cable that everything is the same gauge and shielded and picked the wire gauge based on how big your power conductors need to be.

The signal wires don't care if they're going through a really thin wire or a heavier gauge.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[soldar]

The problem with that is that you end up with something like a garden hose.

Better get more thin conductors than you need and parallel a few for the current supply.

[mariush]

Well, nobody said it but it may still be an option.

If there is room at both ends of the cable, maybe it's worth analyzing if it's possible to reduce the number of wires ... like for example if they use multiple pairs of wires to carry a low voltage but high current, maybe you could have at one end of the cable a step-up regulator and at the other end of the cable a step-down regulator.

Or, maybe if multiple wires are used for buttons and led indicators on the handpiece , maybe you could have a tiny microcontroller at both ends that would take "signals" that would normally go through multiple wires and "multiplex" across just 2-3 wires (i2c, spi etc)

If you can get the number of wires down to 8 in total, you're getting in the land of RJ45 (ethernet) and phones and those curly cables used to connect handpieces to phone base.

[soldar]

Another possibility might be rebuilding the old one. Maybe you could dip it in some plastic bath that would leave a coat of plastic. Or something that could be applied with a brush. Try searching for --flexible plastic coating-- like https://www.benam.co.uk/new-urecoat-flexible-urethane-coating/