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Some Important Information on Wire Rope Spooling 

Our state of the art spoolers does away with using traditional methods which are out dated. Technology has brought together an improved version to carry out coiling jobs which were once deemed impossible. 

Traditional method Fig. A and B are outdated and technically, no longer considered efficient methods. As the demand for larger size wire ropes increasingly becoming popular, these methods are fast becoming obsolete.

Our fleet of spooling machines were specially designed to improve on traditional methods.   

Fig. A
 Wire rope coil on a stand where“tension”is created placing the wire rope between two rubber tires and adding a load on it. This method does not create sufficient back tension and should there be a need to pay out during the coiling process would invite trouble.

 Fig. B 
Wire rope passing through a series of sheaves.  These sheaves are tighten by means of bolts.  “Tension” is created by working on the  principle to increase the difficulty for the wire  rope to pass through. The sheave structure is  then fastened to a strong point.  This method  causes  force against the strands of the wire  rope leading to damages to the wires. Not  suitable for non-rotating wire rope.

Back-tension     

Back tensioning is very important when installing a wire rope onto a winch where a series of  multiple layer of wire rope coiling exists. If insufficient back tensioning is produced, the wire  rope on the top layers of the drum will be prone to cutting into the under layers upon load  application. This will result in damages to the wire rope.  

Coiling a wire rope onto the drum or winch with constant back tensioning produces a coil package that is tight and evenly distributed with little tolerance for side movement acting on the underlying, inner layers of the rope coil.

Cross Sectional View

Wire rope is coiled onto the winch without  sufficient tension. Resulting in loosely  packed layers of wire rope and weak under  layers. These layers form weak foundation  and support allowing top layers to “cut in”  when load is applied. Uneven coiling can  also be evident here. 

As load is applied to the wire rope (red), it forces    downwards and penetrates “cut in” the lower    layers.     This evidently causes crushing, severe abrasion    and mechanical damage. Severe conditions will    render the winch incapacitated and wire rope need    to be professionally removed or cut free.

Coiling a wire rope onto a winch with constant back tensioning produces a coil that is evenly  coiled and tightly packed. As there is a significant reduction in gaps, a strong under layer  acting as a solid foundation is evident.  This would significantly reduce the “cut in” when load  applied. 
 
As the wire rope was spooled in under constant back tension, the winch is ready for use and the  need for pre-tension in the fields are done away with saving time and man hours. 
 
As a front-end tension is applied, the coiled wire rope will retain its position on the drum  allowing for even, damage-free removal of the wire rope. 

Our fleet of spooling machines are designed to produce up to 15-tons (machine dependant) of constant back-tensioning during the spooling operations.  This back-tensioning is hydraulically controlled and can be consistently maintained throughout the spooling/coiling job.