I often joke that I have coiled enough cable to get to the moon and back. Turns out that I was exaggerating just a little. It appears that it would take about 30 million 50 foot mic cables just to get there. In case you were wondering, its about 284,000 miles to the moon.
Why this sudden interest in proving myself wrong? We’ll, I just came across a device that might have kept me from retiring from the sound business. It’s the Kaltman Cable Coiler. If this thing really works, it would be pretty cool. It is a battery powered device that is designed to coil a 50 foot microphone cable in under 10 seconds. All without kinking or binding.
My first question is how does this device deal with the natural twist in a cable that comes from how the conductors inside the cable jacket are twisted. Both the conductors and the shield have a twist in them and this is why using the under and over style of cable coiling is so important for cable life. The natural twist in the cable is the reason that a good cable can be ruined so quickly if you wrap the coil around your arm instead of using proper coiling techniques.
It also appears from the short video at their site that it is necessary to have all your cables laid out in a manner where they are completely untangled in order to use the coiler properly. This could take a lot of stage space in a venue where you might have 30 or 4o mic cables, all mixed in with extension cords, speaker cables, video cable, etc.
Still, the idea of having a machine do all your cable coiling is intriguing. We are going to contact Kaltman in hopes of getting one to evaluate. I’ll let you know what we find out.
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