Flexible Welding Cable: Why Flexibility Matters

Welding is a tough job that requires specialized skills and equipment. It requires a great deal of experience and knowledge to perform properly. In many situations, performing welding properly becomes a matter of public safety. That means your equipment needs to function as intended. The least of which you probably have your mind on (as a welder) is the welding cable that is used in day to day operations. It’s just one aspect of your equipment that needs to function as intended.

Your gloves, mask, and welding equipment need to show up at work just like you do and perform their offices dutifully, otherwise the job doesn’t get done. Even though the welding cable might be behind you on the ground, it needs to do its job, too. That means it has to carry the right ampacity for your welder to work as intended, in a variety of conditions. It needs to work through sun and rain, heat and cold, and stand up to corrosive and abrasive agents.

It also has to be where you are. If you are welding panels of sheet metal outside in the elements or conducting structural welding work, that means you’ll be working in situ. You can’t take your work materials or work piece elsewhere. That means you and your equipment, including the welding cable, must be on site where you need to be.

It also means that you must make the most of flexible welding cable, which may explain why you’ve heard that specific virtue lauded so widely. Welding cable needs to be a lot of things, not the least of which is being able to work with the electrical infrastructure on your job site, but among them, it needs to be very flexible.

Any of you welders reading this might think it’s obvious that welding cable needs to be made flexible, or why it needs to be made flexible, but if you’re reading this with a genuine interest, here are some things to weigh in the matter of why it’s so important that welding cable can work in and around a jobsite.

So Why Flexibility?

The main thing to consider here is that unlike other cables, which are either fixed, or to which materials and equipment can be brought, welding cables need to be brought on site. They also need to be constructed in such a manner that they can be worked or maneuvered into a location so that the work can be performed. In a word, this means that a given cable needs to be flexible.

For example, arc welders require equipment that they can manipulate and maneuver around the job site, and since the process requires electricity, that also makes flexible welding cable prerequisite. Consider the following scenario.

A welder needs to join two beams that are part of the structure of a building or some other large engine that cannot be easily moved. Perhaps it cannot be moved at all. You don’t need much more explanation along with this visual. The welder needs to be able to position himself and his equipment to do his welding there.

Now, there’s something else to consider in all of this. Not everyone has had personal experience working with heavy gauge cables, but the wider the cable (and the smaller the AWG rating) the heavier, stiffer, and less manageable it becomes. On one side, a larger, thicker cable is crucial for carrying the electrical current necessary for a job. At the same time, as the thickness of the cable increases, so also does the conductor metal that goes into its makeup. That is to say, a very thick welding cable will be made from heavy, stiff copper conductors.

Thin copper wire is ductile and flexible enough, but once you get to a certain point it gets very difficult to bend or maneuver copper conductors. On top of that, cable starts to get very heavy fairly quickly. Actually, that’s why they make cables, or one of the reasons at least.

An electrical line for welding could be a wire, which means a single-stranded, solid conductor, but if it was, there’d be no bending it into shape or working it around an environment. Actually, even relatively thin copper wire becomes very difficult to manipulate if it doesn’t have multiple strands. It’s basically a big piece of solid metal material, and even though copper is pretty soft, it’s still very dense and heavy. Many welding cables would be very impractical if they were made of single conductors, not to mention heavy. Actually, they’re pretty heavy as it is.

So for one thing, welding cables need to be made as flexible as possible to ensure that they can be used, practically, in a variety of job sites and locations. This is accomplished primarily in two ways.

For one thing, the cables are insulated with tough yet flexible insulation, such as the EPDM insulation you will find on the welding cables on our site. This, however, only enhances their ability to provide a good degree of flexibility. The prime method of ensuring the same comes from the construction of the cables themselves.

You see, many flexible welding cables are made with many small copper conductors. We know, all cables are made with a large number of individual conductors. However, with welding cable, like extra flexible marine grade battery cable, is specifically made with a higher-than-average cable strand count that helps to ensure the cable will remain flexible so that it can be used on a job site.

For example, even our small, 6 AWG Extra Flexible Welding Cable is made up of approximately 259 individual strands of pure copper conductors despite the fact that it is only .320” in diameter. By the way, on the note of weight, this cable weighs over an ounce per foot, which doesn’t sound like a lot but is decently heavy. Without those extra strands, it would be way too stiff to use as a welding cable.

Besides Flexibility, What Else Makes Welding Cable?

However, as important as extra flexible welding cable really is, there is a lot more that makes a welding cable valuable, and it isn’t all about flexibility. It’s about total general utility as a cable to supply power to welding applications, and as these are commonly used outside or in other unforgiving conditions, you can hope for a lot more than flexibility from a welding cable. Here are some of the traits to look for.

●Resistance to oil and gasoline: Many welding cables, like the ones you will find on our website, are insulated with a jacket made from EPDM rubber which is very tough and very flexible. EPDM, which stands for ethylene propylene diene monomer (and is quite a mouthful) is valuable because it has a lot of traits that make a wire or cable much more capable to contend with environmental stressors, in addition to being very flexible. However, one thing that EPDM rubber is not particularly good with is exposure to oil and gasoline. Although EPDM is resistant to many conditions along with polar materials, it does not exhibit good resistance to hydrocarbons like oil and gasoline. Our welding cables, even though they are coated in EPDM, are oil and gasoline resistant, which is good news since these materials are sometimes present on job sites.

●Resistance to heat and cold: It should go without saying that a cable that is intended to work outdoors needs to be resistant to both heat and cold, whether or not the temperature is a product of the weather. Sometimes working conditions in warehouses and mines can be swelteringly hot; you also must remember that there are jobs to be done in far north regions where the temperature routinely dips precipitously. Our cables are rated to 600 volts between -50C and 105C. That makes them practical for use in all but the most extreme of environments.

●Resistance to moisture: In addition to being able to cope with relative extremes of temperature, it’s important for a welding cable to exhibit resistance to moisture. Actually, it’s important for all electrical wires and cables to exhibit some degree of resistance to water, since water presents a distinct occupational hazard in this particular area. To put it bluntly, it’s not safe to use a welding cable outdoors (and they often are) if the cable is not resistant to moisture. It doesn’t even have to come from the sky. Puddles collect on the ground and the soil contains moisture too; a cable that lacks resistance could present a serious issue.

●Specific resistance to abrasion: In the section above it was mentioned that a cable needs to exhibit a fair degree of resistance to moisture because, among other areas, it could come into contact with moisture along the ground. This presents another unique issue. Cables that come in contact with wet ground will get wet, but they will also have sand, mud and other detritus that clings to them. This is an issue because it represents an abrasion hazard. Even if it were not for that unique situation, cables can be stepped on or crushed, or simply inadvertently forced into tight spaces. This means that they also need to exhibit resistance to mechanical abrasion. Ours are made from tough rubber that is not only chemically resistant but physically resistant as well. It's a tough cable.

●Resistance to sunlight: Our welding cables also are suitable for use in solar arrays, and therefore they need to possess some of the traits mentioned above, namely resistance to weather and moisture. However, there is more that solar cable (AKA) photovoltaic or PV cable needs to exhibit. For example, PV cable should be resistant to weather, temperature and moisture, but consider one very specific thing that it will be exposed to, and a lot of it at that: sunlight. Sunlight can burn your skin and it does even worse tricks to other materials exposed to it. For example, it breaks down synthetic materials like many plastics. Luckily, EPDM is resistant not only to the UV radiation in sunlight but also to ozone.

●General durability: As you can see there are a number of specific points in addition to flexibility that a welding cable should hit on in order to be considered one of “high quality.” On top of superior flexibility, a welding cable should be resistant to these environmental factors, which often leads to high flexibility welding cables being categorized as durable. If you see them labeled as such, you might want to ask some questions about the specific traits of the cables. You’ll know much better then if a cable is able to withstand a given environment instead of just a vaguely defined set of stressors.

What Else Can You Use Welding Cable for?

In addition to being practical for use as welding cables, ours are also useful for a number of other specific electrical applications, including the following. If you have any questions about practical uses for our wires and cables, just call and ask.

●Battery connections: Welding cable is not only useful for supplying electrical power to welding applications. It is also highly useful for making battery connections. Our welding cables are also supplied with black and red insulation, making them more practical for these applications.

●Certain solar applications: Our welding cables are also practical for some solar hookups, such as to inverters that are a part of solar arrays. Call us for more information.

●Leads for motors and generators: These rugged cables are also suitable for use as leads with motors and generators.

●Extensions for battery relocation: If you must move a battery out of its current position but still use it for powering a circuit, our welding cables may be practical for this purpose.

Many of our products, including, specifically our extra flexible welding cable, are made with pride here in the United States. In addition to welding cable, we also provide high quality marine battery cable, aluminum cable, DLO cables, tray cables, copper building wire and cable, alarm and security cable, and much more.

Feel free to reach out to us if you have questions about our products. You can get in touch with us at sales@ewcswire.com or at 800-262-1598.