Cable Bowden

The Câble Bowden is a flexible system of transmission of the movement in Mécanique, invented in 1902 by Frank Bowden, of the Raleigh bicycle company.

It is composed of a flexible cable (generally of twisted steel), sliding in a flexible sheath.

The two ends of the cable are provided with crimped or screwed ends, in order to connect machine parts (often a lever, like a handbrake lever on a bicycle) to another (the brake, in our example).

The sheath, made up of a spring with jointed whorls is enclosed in a plastic or cotton sheath. The two ends of the sheath are blocked by thrusts bored to let pass the cable.

Advantages - Disadvantages

light
cheap
easy to use
requires a lubrication
takes dust by its ends
prone to rupture or blocking (frayed cable, broken sheath)
extensible (the order spongy makes)

Alternatives

the sheath can be stopped on part of the way of the cable if there exists a rectilinear zone, of form and fixed length (case of the cables of bicycle along the framework). The cable circulates then with naked between two obstinate bored.
In this case, it can have a change of management of the cable by means of a Poulie
the adjustment relative length of the cable compared to the sheath can even there be carried out either by a tensioner, often located at an end of the sheath, composed of a hollow screw and a counter-nut, or by displacement of a screwed end.

Uses

accelerating
brake
shifting of speed

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