Need Help on Cable Animation with Cloth Modifier

[Byteman]

I am trying to create animated cables for dental equipment. I have connected the ends of a straight line to dummy nodes. To set an initial state, I have moved the end nodes to the determined locations. 

Cables seem to behave ok. initially but they continue to twist even after predetemined node motion stops. 

The definitions of parameters in the documentation don't help decide which parameter I should tweak, without testing and it is a tedious task to one by one change parameters, simulate and retry. 
Can anyone supply a quick parameter tip that will help relax the cables without sagging or turning the circular cable section into an ellipse.

My settings are in the image. I have attached a preview, too.

[Byteman · Accepted solution]

😏 

Lowering the U-Bend and V-Bend Values from 50 to something around 10 helped stop magic hand twisting.

I still appreciate any recommendations for any possible tips/warnings on the other values.

[10DSpace · Accepted solution]

@Byteman 

I cannot really replicate the degree of overshoot of motion on your cables using a simple setup with your cloth settings.  See my attached Max file which has a little sway in the cable that you would expect, but nothing to the degree that you are showing.  My 3 thoughts/questions for you are:

1) Did you lower the gravity setting by any chance?

2) What scale/size in length and thickness are your cables

3)How does your setup differ from mine?  I just created a group of verts at the top of the cable and a separate group of verts at the bottom of the cable and bound each group via the Cloth Node type constraint to separate dummy objects.  Then animated the lower dummy to get the movement of the cable.

Is the degree of sway in my cable what you are looking for or not?

[Byteman]

Gravity is default. My cables are roughly around 1 meter (40 inches or so) Thickness is 0.7 cm's. It turns out my problem was U and V- Bend values being high. Were 50-50 in the previous video. In that example I tried to place the dummy nodes to both ends of straight lines and move the cables to my initial position by moving the dummies just as you did. One thing is -you'll see in the Max file- Dummies have been rotated about 90 degrees, as the direction of order of 3 dummies at the ends are at 90 degree angles with each other. God knows in which direction they have completed their rotations. Thanks to the axis order of the Euler Ctrlr. 

This is the version I have successfully moved my nodes to their initial locations from straight lines at U-V Bends set to 10-10. I have truncated the simulation and created my real action at frames 930-1050. Cable no longer bends that much at 50-50 U-V Bend, but I have simulated at 100-100 bend values to show you the bend. If you set them back to 10-10 Everything seems fine. Even 50-50 works, but there is some unwanted bending at that values, too.

I think it is the dummy rotation that exaggerates the effect of bends.

[10DSpace]

@Byteman 

Looks good to me at 10-10 for UV bend.  Glad you were able to solve it.