Editing 2880: Sheet Bend

This is the seventh installment in the series of [[:Category:Cursed Connectors|Cursed Connectors]] and presents Cursed Connectors #46: The Sheet Bend. At the time of release this was the lowest number used for a cursed connector, replacing [[2495: Universal Seat Belt|#65: Universal Seat Belt]] (with [[2507: USV-C|#280: USV-C]] being the one with the highest number).

This comic shows two double-core cables being joined in a knot to make an electrical connection. The knot used to tie the two halves of the cable is a {{w|sheet bend}}, which is often used to join two ropes of different thicknesses, and explains the name for this type of cursed connector, which seems to be made by ensuring each cable end is terminated with identical electrical connections to the outer sleeving in a manner similar to various 'ring' connections in {{w|Phone connector (audio)|'phone' connectors}}, but as significantly longer and more separated sleeves.

In contrast to more normal methods, [[Randall]] has proposed yet another of his 'cursed' connectors. This one requires ''no'' additional plugs, sockets, enclosures or even tools to use. Any two cables with such ends can be brought together and simply knotted together. This particular knot, and the specific spacing of its two external conductors, appears to be chosen in order to rather elegantly create consistent connections between the respective contacts, with a minimum of fuss.  

* The need to have suitable ends to any cables, which would involve issues in the manufacture (and the materials used) as cable's cores must be separately tapped and reliably connected to an external length of conductive sleeving.

* The consistent ability of a cabler to tie the correct knot, which is a skill that will need practice. Done wrongly the electrical connections may not be made correctly, or at all (including as discussed in the title text).

* Even if the user is a competent and consistent knot-tier, this is inherently more effort, and therefore less convenient, than the more usual practice of simply pushing two connectors together.

* The external conducting patches of the cable are an uncommon feature of electrical junctions, with issues in both high-power and low-power situations.

** If the cables are supposed to carry high voltages, any bare conductors ought to be safely isolated from easy contact with equipment/people. In particular, plugs and sockets that carry anything approaching mains-voltages have active and passive elements integrated which protect the person connecting or disconnecting the equipment. There is no physical precaution visible to protect the person tying or untying the cable from potential shock. Instead, they must rely upon the ''other'' end of the potentially 'live' cable being disconnected. And, when left unattended, there would continue to be a high risk of injury (including death), fire or more basic damage due to the lack of any proper physical isolation.

** Low-voltage cables that pass signals between equipment (e.g. networking data or audio signals) are susceptible to external contact disrupting the flow. Random static charges, built up and transfered into the connector, instead make other equipment or people the potential threat to the cabled-up equipment, causing disruption to the normal purpose of the cable, where a more standard plug-and-socket/hard-wired connection would not.

* The knot provides a possible snag point by which the cable could be caught; anything which catches or tugs on the knot could cause disconnection.

The title text says that a left-handed sheet bend would provide a weaker connection. The difference between a left-handed and right-handed sheet knot is that the two free ends of the knotted 'cords' are in the same orientation for a right-handed sheet knot (here, both on the lower side of the image), but on opposite sides for a left-handed sheet knot. A left-handed sheet bend provides less strength to the knot, due to the possibility of distorting (e.g. {{w|Knot#Capsizing|''capsizing''}}) and/or allowing one or both cables to pull through the knot.

 

This makes the title text a pun on the double meaning of "moderate load", which could be a moderate amount of physical tension applied through the cables ''or'' a moderate amount of electrical current passing through them. Together, it would be expected that tension drawing two conductive surfaces together would create less resistance between them, strengthening the electrical connection as well, but only if the knot holds as expected.

 

A knot was also the subject of the relatively recent [[2738: Omniknot]].

:[Above the drawing there is a header. Below the header there is a double-core wire going in from the left and stopping just past the middle of the picture. It shows how the inside of the wire looks and how the silver and golden wires inside are connected to two rectangular pieces of silver and golden material respectively. The golden piece is to the left and the silver piece to the right, closest to the end of the wire. Beneath this wire is shown two double-core wires forming a knot of the sheet bend type. Here it becomes clear that the silver and golden pieces are on the outside of the wires (but connected to the wires running inside the wires). In the knotted part of the wires gold touches gold and silver touches silver, without them touching the other color. Beneath this knot there is a label for the connector.]