Metal electrical conductors are commonly used to conduct electricity from one electrical or electronic device to another. These conductors usually are produced in the form of individual wires including a single length of solid or stranded conductor surrounded by an insulating material or a flat cable having a number of parallel conductors surrounded by a sheath of insulating material.
When a large number of connections are to be made between two devices, it is most convenient to utilize the flat cable configuration of conductors because the maintenance of the conductors in a regularly spaced relationship to each other allows all the conductors to be simultaneously attached to a device or connector by well-known mass termination equipment. However, when the conductors are used in an crowded environment where cooling, flexibility of the cable and convenient routing of the cable are important considerations, such as inside a computer chassis, the use of individual wires would be preferable since the free flow of air is not impeded by individual wires as it would be by a wide cable and individual wires are much more flexible and easier to route than flat cable.
It would thus be desirable to combine the best features of both configurations by a construction which held individual wires in a desired configuration temporarily to permit mass termination but which would thereafter allow the separation of the wires to permit the free flow of air between the conductors and enhance the ability to route the wires within the available space.