OSCEOLA, Wis.–Northwire, Inc. has been producing high-flex-life, robotic-grade cables for nearly 20 years. Initially, these products were designed and produced for sensor and discrete industrial control applications. Increasing demand for more rugged cable in industrial network, machine vision and robotic applications has stimulated further flex life cable line expansions at Northwire. Most recently, Northwire has been concentrating its development efforts on products for machine vision and industrial data transmission.
Specifically, Northwire's MVC 1394b FireWire, DataCELL® GEV-1000™ Gigabit Ethernet, CCXC Analog, and Camera Link cables have reached new performance levels for flex life and durability, proven by the Northwire Standardized Flex Testing Protocol (NSFTP)–mode A tick-tock, and mode B twist and flex. Northwire now has the most complete line of high-flex cable products for machine vision applications. Pricing for Northwire high-flex cable is remarkably similar to nonindustrial and non-flex tested products, making them an excellent overall performance value. Northwire Vision cable products are available in small quantities for immediate shipping through NorthwireDirect.
DataCELL FIELD MVC-800 Extended Length (EL) FireWire Cable IEEE 1394b
Northwire’s high-flex-life MVC-800 EL FireWire Cable for industrial environments surpassed 11 million flex cycles in rigorous bending, rolling and torsion tests. MVC-800 FireWire Cable is IEEE 1394b-rated. In addition to the extended flex-life, the cable has been tested and is certified to operate at IEEE 1394b 800 MBPS speed out to a length of 7 meters–2.5 meters beyond the 4.5 meters standard.
These rough-service, industrial-strength cables are UL recognized, CSA approved and RoHS compliant. For optimal shielding, there is a 100 percent coverage foil/polyester tape shield with two drain wires and an overall tinned copper braid. The outer jacket is flexible oil-resistant TPE and the cable is flame rated to FT-1. Standard color is Northwire’s trademark matte dark green.
DataCELL GEV-1000 Gigabit Ethernet Cable
DataCELL GEV-1000 has surpassed 12 million tick-tock test cycles. It meets the strict mechanical, electrical and shielding requirements for industrial GigE Vision camera installations and interfaces with standard and specialty Ethernet cable connectors. GEV-1000 has been thoroughly tested for standard compliance and application suitability. The cable was tested for TIA/EIA-568-B compliance using a Fluke DTX-1800 Cable Analyzer™. The test confirmed CAT 5e performance up to 60 meters. The cable has also been evaluated with a DALSA Genie-M640™ Gigabit Ethernet camera operating up to 60 frames per second. GEV-1000 will continue to be subjected to rigorous high-flex-life evaluation on Northwire’s exclusive flex-tension-torsion and bending stress testing apparatus.
GEV-1000 is suitable for use in motion applications and has dual shields (braid and foil), industrial-grade construction and a weld flash-resistant TPE outer cable jacket. It is oil and abrasion resistant and is suitable for outdoor installation.
CCXC Analog Video Cable
Northwire CCXC Cable for CCD analog video camera applications has surpassed 20 million flex test cycles in mode A and 21 million test cycles in mode B. The outer jacket of CCXC Cable is TPE elastomer, which is abrasion, flame, UV, weld-flash and water resistant, and features a temperature range from 80°C to —30°C. It is RoHS compliant and ideal for rugged industrial and outdoor use. With its tightly controlled impedance of ±5 ohms, it will perform at lengths up to 40 meters.
Camera Link Cable
Northwire's Camera Link 28 AWG cable has reached the 20 million mark on mode A tick-tock flex cycle testing. The Northwire Camera Link product line includes standard cable and Power over Camera Link (PoCL)–Camera Link cable with power transmission capabilities. Northwire’s standard and PoCL Camera Link cables feature 28 AWG conductors and meet the requirements of Appendix D and Appendix E of the Camera Link specification. These cables use Northwire EnduroFLEX® TPE jacketing material for rugged industrial and outdoor environments. The cable is suitable for applications that require abrasion resistance, flame resistance, high- and low-temperature stability (a high temperature rating of 105° C and brittle point of -30° C), sunlight/UV resistance and water resistance.
Northwire Standardized Flex Testing Protocol (NSFTP)
NSFTP includes rolling and torsion flex under tension and bending flex. Mode B is a rolling and torsion flex test. The test apparatus twists the cable–attached to a weight–360 degrees at approximately 30 cycles per minute. Mode A is the bending flex (or tick-tock) test. In this test, the apparatus bends the cable under tension, using a hanging weight, and is flexed 90 degrees over a fixed nylon block. Each bending cycle is completed every two seconds. For more information on NSFTP and to view an animation of the actual flex testing, go to
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Filed Under: Cables + cable management, ELECTRONICS • ELECTRICAL, Vision • machine vision • cameras + lenses • frame grabbers • optical filters • scanners