All About Cable Ties

By Author: Abhishek Gupta
Total Articles: 6
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Cable ties or, as they are commonly known as, zip ties are the most simple way to manage and tie together a bunch of cables and wires. They are easy to manage – one can easily bundle them up and fasten tight. Invented in late 1950s, the primary use of cable ties was in avionics to tie together the cable going through airplanes. Initially, they had metal ratchet and rack, commonly known as teeth. Nylon and vinyl ties came later.

Varieties of cable ties available

Cable ties are now available in both single-use and reusable varieties; though single-use variety is more common. These “one-time use” zip ties have certain problems associated with them.

1. Cost impact

Single-use zip ties are not very cost-effective, especially when you are working with temporary or less-permanent wiring. Ties offer very strong fastening. So, every time you need to realign or change wire and cable, you end up cutting the tie or crushing the head.

2. Environment impact

Plastic waste is fast becoming environmental menace. They are toxic for soil and water and are not bio-degradable. More plastic waste ...
... means need for more landfills. (Wikipedia describes landfill- A landfill site also known as tip, dump or rubbish dump and historically as a midden is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment. Historically, landfills have been the most common methods of organized waste disposal and remain so in many places around the world.)Single-use ties end up as waste and head towards landfills, if not recycled properly.

3. No space for error

Single-use ties leave no space for undoing any error while wiring. In case you have missed to tuck in any cable into the bundle or tied together wrong matches; you have to cut it and use a new zip.

Many people try and succeed releasing ratchet from rack in common single-use ties too. They generally use needle or small screwdriver to manipulate the fastening. However, this practice surely weakens tie-strength and hence should not be encouraged.

For reusable ties, you must use releasable ties. They are available in variety of sizes, just like their single-use counter parts. Releasable cable ties come with interlocking lever. To release ratchet from rack you just need to depress the lever. They are mostly made of nylon and white colored. However, other color varieties are not too uncommon.

Author Bio : Abhishek has penned down different write-ups on Cable Ties. In this article he briefly describes many things about Releasable Cable Ties.