Easy-fit 19-strand 6181Y tails in the 1990s

[pc1966]

Was helping a friend out and changing their CU which had a date stamp from 1990. Good quality Merlin-Gerin unit and a nice job originally. They recently had a smart meter fitted and no isolator, but they had put in a Henley block in the L path so at least I could pull the load cable with a tolerable degree of safety (don't try this at home folks, I had arc-flash PPE just in case).

What surprised me was the tails were red & black 19-strand so fairly easy to wrangle! Also long enough that they could be reused (so no need to add Henley block in N), one of the few things that made my day a bit better.

I had been under the impression that the likes of the Doncaster cable easy-fit tails were a relatively new thing in place of traditional 7-stranded cable, so wondered how common this was?

 

[littlespark]

This explains my question on the other thread.

 

[davesparks]

Could they have been older imperial tails?

 

[Rockingit]

Personally I'd like to see a trend towards multi-finewire for tails! When you think how easy even larger sizes of tri-rate are that get used internally in most CU's, it seems madness that we don't. Even with the extra layer of sheath they'd still be so much better and to my mind also make a better connection (assuming they've been ferruled properly).

 

[Dustydazzler]

plenty olders houses still have nice red/black 10mm tails on 100amp supplies with a nice 6mm tns main earth , none of this fancy multi trand fine wire stuff

 

[Rockingit]

plenty olders houses still have nice red/black 10mm tails on 100amp supplies with a nice 6mm tns main earth , none of this fancy multi trand fine wire stuff

Wasn't saying that it doesn't work, I just know which I'd rather be wrangling with as a first choice!

 

[pc1966]

Could they have been older imperial tails?

I don't know, did not check for that. However, the CU they were installed in to was dated 1990 so I guessed it was from the same era.

 

[pc1966]

plenty olders houses still have nice red/black 10mm tails on 100amp supplies with a nice 6mm tns main earth , none of this fancy multi trand fine wire stuff

In free air CCC is much higher. Of course in olden days there would be few homes with enough stuff to actually draw 100A, and today few folks could afford to!