A generally down period for the global wire and cable industry has not quelled the ambitions of Cable Component Group (CCG), which sees great potential for some of its new products that it believes can provide an edge for their customers. “The cards aren’t perfect, but we’re very optimistic about our outlook, and what we can offer to help U.S. cablemakers be more competitive in the global market,” declared Managing Director Charlie Glew, who along with Vice President David Braun and Marketing & Business Development Director Ed Fenton recently discussed why the company moved this year to a larger facility (58,000 sq ft) in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, USA, and expanded its workforce, which includes a new national sales manager, Glen Goldreich, four full-time process engineers as well as three Ph.D. level consultants. The trio explained that CCG has evolved from providing custom designed crosswebs and separators to a company that now has a wide spectrum of engineered components for the wire and cable, fiber optic and other new industrial markets. They have high expectations for several new CCG products, including one innovation, FluoroFoam®, that provides a unique cable approach. Used over the years to make its own crosswebs, tapes, and tubes, CCG’s newly developed, chemically foamable perfluoropolymer pellets are now available to cable manufacturers for foamable wire insulation. CCG took a hard look at what was inside a data cable, including the insulation, and saw potential. “We looked at the solid insulation in a cable and asked ourselves, ‘Can we foam that plastic?’ Well, it turns out that we could, and based on more than three years of research and test runs at our facility, we believe that we have something pretty unique,” Glew said. “That’s what FluoroFoam has done. Every solid fluoropolymer can be chemically foamed as CCG’s extruded profiles have been over the last few years.” Using a dedicated R&D extrusion line, the company found distinct advantages to using its patent-pending fluoropolymer pellets, which are recyclable and RoHS-complaint, Glew said. FluoroFoam can be used to insulate all Cat. 6 grade cables with wall thicknesses as small as 6 mils at processing speeds over 800 fpm. The foamed insulation material provides better electricals, weighs less, is more flexibile and has good crush resistance. With some minor tooling changes, the product, UL-recognized for plenum cable insulation, can be pressure-extruded on existing lines without the expense of gas injection, making it “self-skinning,” all of which results in a process with reduced die corrosion, he said. Braun said that several U.S. cable manufacturers have been testing the technology in recent months, with positive results, and that more such efforts are in the works. “We could have come out with this product a year ago, but we spent the extra time to make sure that it could do exactly what we thought it could.” The process has been bolstered by industry experts who have joined CCG and have offered critical input. Glew estimated that there are some 40 to 50 North American cable producers that could benefit from FluoroFoam. FluoroFoam products are available for PVDF, ECTFE and ETFE, and can be used to insulate or even jacket other electrical cables, but at this point CCG is focusing on its core expertise of LAN cable component design where chemically foamed FEP and MFA is a technical innovation. CCG is not depending solely on FluoroFoam for its growth. Fenton stressed that CCG has other products that are quite appealing, such as its foamed crosswebs and separators; solid, foamed and co-extruded tubes; slit-fibrillated tapes; foamable fibrillated fillers; high flame-retardant FluroSpun™ yarns and fibers for use as ripcords or fire-retardant bedding materials in premise optical fiber cables requiring a plenum rating; new technology for multiple slitting of films; Cat. 6 grade cable designs that do not have traditional separators; and aramid blended with FluoroSpun yarns that offer greater fire retardancy. Braun said that CCG has the resources to customize solutions, noting a company motto: “If you can draw it, we’ll make it.” CCG also represents and is a stocking representative of a line of tin-plated copper wire conductors from Israeli-based Assaf Conductor Ltd. “Our picture is good for wire and cable, but we are drifting into other areas,” said Glew, who explained that CCG’s non-woven technology can apply to applications in other sectors, from battery separators, hose reinforcements and filtration products to gaskets and protective materials that could be used by police and fire departments. He added that CCG is in an acquisition mode, but strictly for complementary component businesses. “The ideal situation over the next few years is to broaden CCG component offerings in a tandem fashion with systemic internal growth plus external growth from a synergistic acquisition,” Glew said.

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