Standards of an electrical installation at a major exhbition center

Hi,
Noticed the attached today. On several stands the power had been wired to single gang metal clad sockets with associated back boxes, note that no cable gland appeared to have been used only a plain grommet. The cable appears to be Twin and Earth.

Comments please!

wondered where all my leads went lol

This is pretty standard practice, and had you lifted the floor up you'd have more than likely found the flex connected by what's affectionately referred to as a 'dongys' (Harting style flat 15A lighting connectors) with each radial cut exactly to length and running down a spider network of 20mm conduit - just so that it can all be pre-wired back in the shop and the chippies just have to lay it out and plug it in. You may also find that there was probably meant to be something OVER it as well like a desk/table/brochure kind of thing.

Just picked up on the T&E - that IS unusual as it's normally specified pre-build by the organisers electricians to be flex only. And that pic is a bit of a mess - looks a very low grade stand.

It's not clever, but they're scrupulously inspected for RCD protection and such like by the venue electrical teams (unless standards really HAVE dropped since I was last doing exhibitions) and only up for 3 days before being skipped - go figure.

No,
It is not flex, it was 2.5mm T&E. This particular stand was for the demonstration of camera flash lighting equipment. This standard was repeated on other stands as well.

You were typing whilst I was editing! Have a re-read ^^^

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Where was this, btw?

It was the NEC of all places, they have a large photographic exhibition on.

Hmm, that does/not surprise me tbh. I used to know the in house team there really well (you do when you're asking for 3 or 4 400/3 supplies on big touring shows) but often now its left to the exhibition owners contractors to resolve and they're not so hot.

Hi
That's pretty much the standard in the exhibition industry. I'm surprised there was even a grommet in the socket! Sockets are wired in 1.5 twin and never fastened back. They are wired back to an rcd board where everything (lighting circuits included) is on a 16a c or d type breaker. These boards will generally be hooked over the back of the stand or fastened back with cable ties. They're generally metal clad with all the knockouts knocked out in the top of the board for cable entry. The mains are generally fused at 32a and daisy chained in 2.5 to all the boards on the block. Sockets at the front of the stands are usually run under the carpet in plastic capping. Cpc's aren't sleeved up, instead they're cut off short to prevent the bare conductor touching anything live. Fine until the loose socket gets pulled and the cpc pulls out before line and neutral. If you want to see some real electrical horrors just take a look at the back of the stand!