In the Aerospace industry, special applicator guns exist to zip bundles of wire in a specified tension. [1] But the use of butchers twine and wax line in still rather common.
A few more points:
- Zip ties are also made of ABS plastic - which has a Tg of <200*F...things start uncoupling around there.
- Kapton gets brittle, and most of these cable bundles are covered in the stuff.
- Mass. There are plenty of lightweight fibers (Aramid/Kevlar, carbonfiber, nanofibers, etc) whose tensile strength is greater than steel.
- Lastly, I'm biased against zip ties after multiple recabling projects while in IT...
A few more points:
- Zip ties are also made of ABS plastic - which has a Tg of <200*F...things start uncoupling around there.
- Kapton gets brittle, and most of these cable bundles are covered in the stuff.
- Mass. There are plenty of lightweight fibers (Aramid/Kevlar, carbonfiber, nanofibers, etc) whose tensile strength is greater than steel.
- Lastly, I'm biased against zip ties after multiple recabling projects while in IT...
[1] http://tools.tycoelectronics.com/cabletiegun.html