notches

[bee-gin-errr]

hi ladies and gents. were gettin some pretty major electrics done at the moment and i was having a look at the lighting circuits the electricians are putting in just out of bare faced curiosity. it appears that they have put little notches or nicks in the cable ends. were a few with 2 notches and even some with 3. are these used for some sort of identification or something?

 

[jimmus]

Yes

These are identifying the swith wires, feeds,loop feeds etc so when they come back to 2nd fix they know what each cable is.

Every sparks seems to have a different way of marking cables and i've had to bell out an entire lighting rewire before connecting because someone else has wired it!

 

[ian.settle1]

when I served my time as an apprentice I was told that the live and neutral had no nicks, live and switch wire one nick and any loop switch wire and neutral had two nicks when using T&E.

 

[danzor]

Our way is:

Feeds no marking
S/L 1 nick
loop cable has a cross

 

[jimmus]

See what i mean thats 2 slightly different ways.

How about 3 cores for 2 ways and outside lights with permanant live to them

You could have a 3 gang switch by front door with strappers for up and down lights 2 ways, switch wire for down light and 3 core for outside light.

I would mark them;
Switch wire-one nick
down light strapper 3 nicks
up lights strapper 4 nicks
o/s light- a cross

I dont use 2 nicks for anything! Just the way i was taught when i was an apprentice

 

[rumrunner]

Our way is:

Feeds no marking
S/L 1 nick
loop cable has a cross

Thats what i do, anything else is just confusing the issue

 

[harry98]

feeds have a diagonal cut

Switch wires have 1 nick on the side of the cable

strappers have a nick in middle of the cabel inbetween the 2 cores

Loop cables dont have any marks.

 

[stevie h]

Thats what i do, anything else is just confusing the issue

Thats what i use

 

[Had8Lives]

I just keep a permanent marker in my pocket. Loop cables have to labelling, switch cables and links to other lights on the same switch are labelled, that way no confusion.

Ooops! Typo, sorry, Loop cables have NO labelling!

 

[danzor]

labelling takes time and time is money my friend.

The worst is running data cables. I hated it, used to nick the cat5 with up to 15 nicks. Just to **** the data guys of

 

[Shakey]

I go with Had8lives and just use the permanent marker

And all of these nicks, notches and croses have proved one thing, - there is no standard for this and you can definetely only rely on marks that you have put on the cable yourself! (or someone you KNOW is working to the same rules!)

 

[danzor]

we had to finish of a polish sparks job. Every cable was marked in polish, imagine the fun we had

 

[rumrunner]

we had to finish of a polish sparks job. Every cable was marked in polish, imagine the fun we had

Thats wot you get for giving them a go in thje first place

 

[danzor]

we didn't we were called in after they were kicked of site

 

[rumrunner]

Do they do a translation for the regs book?
i cant understand some of it in English so how do the imigrunts get on i wonder

 

[wayne]

hey dont knock the polskis i had a couple of north of the english border folk that couldnt mark cables ; i usually have to find out for myself despite what been marked ;
Half the time i cant remember what I marked thats why i use a permanent marker.......