Rats nest

[Knobhead]

I’ve just got off the phone to my ex boss (there’s a joke if ever there was one). The company he’s now working for is installing a new plant. The panel manufacturer is suggesting all multi core control cables go in to a marshalling cubical so that each cable is made fully off. So say it’s a 27 core it goes in to a terminal rail as cores 1 to 27 then jumpers run in BetaDuct to link between the multi cores to the internal panel wiring terminal. He’s wanting to do it direct style so each incoming core goes direct to the internal wiring terminal. OK again done in BetaDuct, but the spare cores are then just coiled up in the bottom of the chamber. “It cuts down on terminals by over 50% and therefore the connections” is his argument.

Out on plant I used the same marshalling system so all JB’s would have the multi cores fully made off. He’s wanting the same direct system out there.

Knowing I’ve worked on both set ups he wanted to know what I thought of it. I know which I prefer. Sorting out a rat’s nest of spare cores isn’t one of my favourite pass times, it adds hours to doing a modification.

We’re probably talking about 600 external cores going in to the main chamber so OK cutting down on the number of terminals will be considerable with his method. Doing it my way would take 1200+.

Which do you guy’s prefer?

 

[netblindpaul]

Cables fully terminated every time, regardless of where they are.
Makes life so much easier, plus if you have a fault, broken core etc., you can easily swap.
Easy to identify the cores, easy to test.

 

[Marvo]

I agree, I would make off in a marshalling cubical first, it's a much better result and it's what our customers would expect of us. Bottom line though is that it's just personal preference, both configurations are common practice

 

[Darkwood]

I prefer to stick to my 4core and earth, i down dream of tangled spagetti that way :icon6:

 

[Big n Daft]

Marshalling box is always a great idea and a far better job.
However the rats nest cuts down not only on terminals but also the labour in terminating. Does the regs or some other document state that all cables have to be terminated????

 

[alarm man]

the cost of terminals is cheap enough,the spark with be terminating the cables anyway so labour cost to term the rest with be small,youd save on future work as all the cables are identified and terminated anyway which will make any future work quicker,and it looks better..

 

[Sparkattack]

I agree with fully terminating all cores, may increase the initial labour/material costs but from a maintenance point of view much better for any modifications or additions at a later date and also makes a better a well persented job of it.

 

[netblindpaul]

better for fault finding too

 

[Engineer54]

There really is no excuse for having ''rat nests'' these days. The amount of controls and protection facilities that are required these days, necessitates having marshaling panels on all such installations, be they commercial or industrial. Terminals within these marshaling panels/boxes should always be, clearly identifiable, as should the cable cores, whether they are in use or spare....

 

[netblindpaul]

Eng,
If you remember we were doing this for your employer at the time you were training.
It was their standard and boy did it make things easier!