Care and Limitations of Metal Coiled Cables

While it is possible to make coils sleeved in copper, brass and stainless steel, there are issues you need to be aware of. Normally, coils are made by forming the coil on a rod, held in place, and oven baked. This aligns the plastic's polymers and forms a coil "memory". Normally the sleeving, being plastic, forms part of this process, so the sleeving and wire in combination are working together to keep the coil shape.

With metal sleeving, while the internal wiring insulation will forming the same memory affect, the outer metal sleeving will not. In fact, the metal sleeving will be doing the opposite: Metal sleeving wants to stay where you put it, so the two are fighting one another. Metal sleeved coils are perfectly possible, but as a result of the above, they are quite fragile, and any stretching will result in the coils wanting to stay in the position they are stretched to. To some extent, this can be corrected by pressing the coils back together again, or winding them tight again. However, Kool Keys will not warranty a metal sleeved coil to keep it's shape at all although this does not affect the other conditions of warranty (see the warranty section here), and all metal sleeved coils should be handled with extreme care. They are to be placed on the desk carefully and not stretched at all. There will be a clear warning and a care document re: this placed in every order that contains a metal sleeved coil, and all customers who order one will be advised as to the fragility of such a cable.

This is only relevant to coiled cables. Straight cables using metal sleeving obviously do not suffer these limitations, although they will still have a tendency to retain any shape you place them in, but this can be an advantage for cable management with a straight cable.