Andy Neil wrote:
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In an industrial machine shop, they will be subject to cutting oil, swarf, dropping on solid concrete floors, etc, etc, etc.

My father tells the tale of one job he had to investigate, which was the field failure of a handcontroller for an enormous planing machine (40 foot (15metre) long bed or something) The wires inside the cable would break, for no readily apparent reason. As co-designer, my father was sent along to look at the failure mode. It turned out that the operator, not wanting to expend too much effort, would tie a loop in the cable and use it as a "Tarzan" swing across the machine to look at what was happening......

Steve