Entertainment Is No Easy Gig For Cable, But Tough Flexalloy® TPE Helps One Company Boost Performance in Music and Sports Venues

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CARSON, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A. March 31, 2003: Rock concerts and sports events are electronic extravaganzas requiring an enormous amount of cable for lighting, sound, media, and more. An advanced PVC-based thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) from Teknor Apex, Vinyl Division, has enabled a cable manufacturer specializing in such applications to help customers create more spectacular events by supplying them with cable that is lighter, more flexible, and more resistant to extreme cold than cable produced with conventional compounds.

One big advantage of Flexalloy (R) vinyl TPE for insulation and jacketing is that it weighs only half as much as rubber, according to James Crisman, vice president of the Entertainment Division of Coast Wire and Plastics Technology. This makes it possible to increase overhead lighting. “Everyone wants a bigger show and more bang for the buck, but there is a limit to the weight that the ceiling structure can support. One customer using our Flexalloy-based products told us that for every rubber cable they run, they could run two of ours.”

Flexalloy compound also provides greater flexibility than conventional vinyl, even at low temperature—a critical advantage at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Crisman said. “To wire video and other feeds to the top of ski slopes, crews snaked hundreds of feet of cable up the side of a mountain, and the cable sat there for days in below-zero weather. Conventional materials cracked; we used Flexalloy and had no problem.”

Even in warmer environments, flexibility is so important for speedy wiring of crowded entertainment venues that Coast Wire is rolling out a new line of entertainment cable based on Flexalloy compound and designed by Crisman, with the trade name FlexOLite (R) Touring Cable.

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One key to the advanced performance of Flexalloy compound is that it is based on ultra high
molecular weight (UHMW) PVC resin, noted Jim Martin, the Teknor Apex sales representative who works with Coast Wire. “While conventional PVC resins have average molecular weight values in the 30,000 to 75,000 range, UHMW values may be as high as 150,000. Incorporating UHMW-PVC and proprietary formulations of other ingredients, Flexalloy products provide the elasticity of non-vinyl TPEs, plus greater toughness, abrasion resistance, and low-temperature performance than conventional vinyl.”

One customer of Coast Wire’s employed an unusual test of the toughness of motor cable jacketed with Flexalloy compound. Motor cable is used for motorized chain lifts mounted overhead above a stage. “The customer tested our cable by dragging it over sharp steel and by running over it with a forklift,” Crisman said. “The cable stayed intact and operational.”

Crisman himself knows the punishment that cable encounters in entertainment venues, since before joining Coast Wire he toured with bands for 18 years as a rigger, carpenter, and sound engineer. “Cable is wound in looms and shipped in cases via semi-trailers, and semi’s are not climate-controlled,” he noted. “When you arrive at a venue, cable can be tough to unravel unless it’s jacketed in a material that stays flexible in the cold.”

In producing FlexOLite cable for entertainment applications, Coast Wire uses Flexalloy compound for the inner coatings or insulation of individual wires and for the outer jacketing over the cable as a whole. The cable is produced in lengths up to 1,000 ft. (305 m).