A cable reel is a round, drum-shaped object such as a spool used to carry various types of electrical wires. [1] Cable reels, which can also be termed as drums, have been used for many years to transport electric cables, fiber optic cables [2] and wire products. Cable reels usually come in four different types, each with their own uses: wood, plywood, plastic and steel.
Wooden drums come in three different varieties: steel-tyred for multiple use, export for sending abroad, and one-way drums for single trip use. Wooden drums can carry heavy loads and are constructed in resinous wood.[ citation needed ]
Discarded wooden reels can often be obtained cheaply and are, owing to their shape, commonly used as furniture (usually coffee tables) for college students and others seeking inexpensive furnishings.[ citation needed ]
Plywood reels are used for transporting lighter loads and are a cheaper alternative to other types of drums, used extensively in the building industry and by commercial electricians. Often made of birch or poplar ply, they are both strong and light-weight. In normal situations, plywood reels are used only once and then destroyed.[ citation needed ]
Often manufactured from recycled plastic, these reels are environmentally friendly and used for lighter weight cables.[ citation needed ]
Nowadays the steel drums have replaced the orthodox wooden drums in the cable and wire industry, but mainly in the offshore industry. Steel drums are normally welded as a fixed drums, but collapsible steel drums do also exist. The steel reels/drums are manufactured in an eco-friendly manner and are more durable than wooden drums, but to a significant higher cost. These steel reels are not as easily stolen. The off shore industry today prefers steel reels/drums instead of wooden or plywood or plastic reels/drums, but the traditional land based industry preferred wooden drums due to lower cost. The steel reels can be loaded with a different range cables and wires from the most heavy cables to the lightest wires. So it can be said to be multipurpose reel.[ citation needed ]
Certain cable reels are built with a retracting mechanism built in. In most cases, the cables on these reels carry mains electricity, though a similar mechanism is used for air hoses. Retractable cable reels are particularly useful for environments where access to electricity or air is needed in a wide variety of places. All retractable hose reels operate using a constant force spring to provide torsion for the spool, and a ratcheting mechanism to prevent the cable from retracting while it is being used.[ citation needed ]
A wire is a flexible strand of metal.
A transmission medium is a system or substance that can mediate the propagation of signals for the purposes of telecommunication. Signals are typically imposed on a wave of some kind suitable for the chosen medium. For example, data can modulate sound, and a transmission medium for sounds may be air, but solids and liquids may also act as the transmission medium. Vacuum or air constitutes a good transmission medium for electromagnetic waves such as light and radio waves. While material substance is not required for electromagnetic waves to propagate, such waves are usually affected by the transmission media they pass through, for instance, by absorption or reflection or refraction at the interfaces between media. Technical devices can therefore be employed to transmit or guide waves. Thus, an optical fiber or a copper cable is used as transmission media.
A fishing reel is a hand-cranked reel used in angling to wind and stow fishing line, typically mounted onto a fishing rod, but may also be used to retrieve a tethered arrow when bowfishing.
A winch is a mechanical device that is used to pull in or let out or otherwise adjust the tension of a rope or wire rope.
A ferrule is any of a number of types of objects, generally used for fastening, joining, sealing, or reinforcement. They are often narrow circular rings made from metal, or less commonly, plastic. Ferrules are also often referred to as eyelets or grommets within the manufacturing industry.
Boat building is the design and construction of boats and their systems. This includes at a minimum a hull, with propulsion, mechanical, navigation, safety and other systems as a craft requires.
A reel is a device used to store elongated and flexible objects by wrapping the material around a cylindrical core known as a spool. Many reels also have flanges around the ends of the spool to help retain the wrapped material and prevent unwanted slippage off the ends. In most cases, the reel spool is hollow in order to pass an axle and allow it to spin like a wheel — a winding process known as reeling, which can be done by manually turning the reel with handles or cranks, or by machine-powered rotating via motors.
A utility pole is a column or post typically made out of wood used to support overhead power lines and various other public utilities, such as electrical cable, fiber optic cable, and related equipment such as transformers and street lights. It can be referred to as a transmission pole, telephone pole, telecommunication pole, power pole, hydro pole, telegraph pole, or telegraph post, depending on its application. A Stobie pole is a multi-purpose pole made of two steel joists held apart by a slab of concrete in the middle, generally found in South Australia.
A cable tie is a type of fastener for holding items together, primarily electrical cables and wires. Because of their low cost, ease of use, and binding strength, cable ties are ubiquitous, finding use in a wide range of other applications. Cable ties were first manufactured by Thomas & Betts under the brand name Ty-Rap.
A patch cable, patch cord or patch lead is an electrical or optical cable used to connect one electronic or optical device to another for signal routing. Devices of different types are connected with patch cords.
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber and find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths than electrical cables. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss; in addition, fibers are immune to electromagnetic interference, a problem from which metal wires suffer. Fibers are also used for illumination and imaging, and are often wrapped in bundles so they may be used to carry light into, or images out of confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are also used for a variety of other applications, some of them being fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers.
Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of infrared light through an optical fiber. The light is a form of carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. Fiber is preferred over electrical cabling when high bandwidth, long distance, or immunity to electromagnetic interference is required. This type of communication can transmit voice, video, and telemetry through local area networks or across long distances.
An optical ground wire is a type of cable that is used in overhead power lines. Such cable combines the functions of grounding and communications. An OPGW cable contains a tubular structure with one or more optical fibers in it, surrounded by layers of steel and aluminum wire. The OPGW cable is run between the tops of high-voltage electricity pylons. The conductive part of the cable serves to bond adjacent towers to earth ground, and shields the high-voltage conductors from lightning strikes. The optical fibers within the cable can be used for high-speed transmission of data, either for the electrical utility's own purposes of protection and control of the transmission line, for the utility's own voice and data communication, or may be leased or sold to third parties to serve as a high-speed fiber interconnection between cities.
Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. is a manufacturer of electric wire and optical fiber cables. Its headquarters are in Chūō-ku, Osaka, Japan. The company's shares are listed in the first section of the Tokyo, Nagoya Stock Exchanges, and the Fukuoka Stock Exchange. In the period ending March 2021, the company reported consolidated sales of US$26,5 billion.
A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with plastic layers and contained in a protective tube suitable for the environment where the cable is used. Different types of cable are used for optical communication in different applications, for example, long-distance telecommunication or providing a high-speed data connection between different parts of a building.
A string potentiometer is a transducer used to detect and measure linear position and velocity using a flexible cable and spring-loaded spool. Other common names include "string pot", "cable-extension transducer", "draw wire sensor", and "yo-yo sensor".
A fiber-optic sensor is a sensor that uses optical fiber either as the sensing element, or as a means of relaying signals from a remote sensor to the electronics that process the signals. Fibers have many uses in remote sensing. Depending on the application, fiber may be used because of its small size, or because no electrical power is needed at the remote location, or because many sensors can be multiplexed along the length of a fiber by using light wavelength shift for each sensor, or by sensing the time delay as light passes along the fiber through each sensor. Time delay can be determined using a device such as an optical time-domain reflectometer and wavelength shift can be calculated using an instrument implementing optical frequency domain reflectometry.
A winding machine or winder is a machine for wrapping string, twine, cord, thread, yarn, rope, wire, ribbon, tape, etc. onto a spool, bobbin, reel, etc.
Optical attached cable (OPAC) is a type of fibre optic cable that is installed by being attached to a host conductor along overhead power lines. The attachment system varies and can include wrapping, lashing or clipping the fibre optic cable to the host. Installation is typically performed using a specialised piece of equipment that travels along the host conductor from pole to pole or tower to tower, wrapping, clipping or lashing the fibre optic cable in place. Different manufacturers have different systems and the installation equipment, cable designs and hardware are not interchangeable.
A gooseneck is a semi-rigid, flexible joining element made from a coiled metal hose. Similar to its natural counterpart, it can be bent in almost any direction and remain in that position. Areas of application for goosenecks are movable brackets for lights, magnifying glasses, microphones and other devices. The hollow shape of the gooseneck allows electrical cables or fiber-optic cables to be accommodated inside, for example.