There are several types of cable machines that are
commonly utilized in the submarine cable lay industry.
The most common types are Cable Drum Engines
(CDE) and Linear Cable Engines (LCE). The CDE is
a capstan type machine consisting of a steel drum of
4 meter diameter with 3 wraps of cable reeved onto
the drum to provide payout and pickup of the cable.
The CDE also contains an ancillary machine called
the Draw-Off Hold Back (DOHB) unit and is a 4 wheel
pair LCE fitted forward of the drum engine and acts as
a hold back device to the cable when paying out. The
DOHB tails cable onto the CDE in order to generate
cable gripping friction.
The LCE is a multiple wheel pair device consisting of
vertically opposed rubber tires which hydraulically
close down on the cable. Hydraulic squeeze force
creates cable friction between the tire pairs to hold the
cable. These machines are normally utilized to deploy
fiber optic cable from cable tanks. However, when
recovering cables from the seabed that are wet and/or
covered with marine growth, LCE’s are not the
preferred machines. This is due to decreased friction
and higher slippage. Higher outboard tensions are
also encountered when recovering cable requiring a
pulling force that can create slippage with an LCE