After extensive “on stand” testing and the first few days of having fun with fully assembled Stanley, we felt pretty confident about the stainless steel cables. But we were wrong.
![](https://cdn.hackaday.io/images/4231621647403367906.png)
Within a few days - after we Started implementing jumping - Stainless Steel Cables started breaking one after another.
![](https://cdn.hackaday.io/images/3487411647403430528.png)
We did tests with thicker cables and different cable constructions. We even built our own machine for testing Cables - the SpringSqueezer (link to the Github repo) :
![](https://cdn.hackaday.io/images/8173671647403555736.png)
We hoped that a thicker cable or one with more and thinner strands would solve the issue:
![](https://cdn.hackaday.io/images/4975531647403594992.png)
But this wasn’t enough. We needed to move to a synthetic cable. After doing the research we decided to go with Dynamica DM20 - a strong synthetic fibre with very low creep.
![](https://cdn.hackaday.io/images/9604151647403625496.png)
Now all Stanleys we build have a custom DM20 rope in their capstan mechanisms.
![](https://cdn.hackaday.io/images/8812791647403779817.jpg)
And it just works! :)
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Which dyneema diameter you use?
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Very interesting! What do you think is the reason for this observation? Are there any other disadvantages of using the Dyneema apart from the creep?
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