What CSA would you say?

[Amp David]

Looking at this picture, what size CSA would you the black bit of cable is?

For reference working fronm left to right we have

2.5mm, 4.0mm, ?mm, 6mm

 

[malcolmsanford]

AWG 8 or 10

 

[Amp David]

Come on Malc, whats that in English lol

 

[Amp David]

that'll be 8.36mm and 5.26mm then

 

[Paul.M]

Special order (at the time) of 5mm? Where has it come from.

 

[malcolmsanford]

ahhhhhhhhh should be AWG 12 then but not bad without the conversion books, I hate AWG it's the cheapiests nastiest stuff in gods green earth.

 

[Amp David]

Special order (at the time) of 5mm? Where has it come from.

Its from a supply to a garage. 2 core. Was installed in 1989.

Why isn't it a standard mm squared?

 

[rocker]

Because they're yanks mate, they only have inches

 

[Paul.M]

I've been told by the old boys that it is possible to order any size, any colour, any core you want from a manufacturer. Why they would go for this in-between size is any ones guess. I think it may have been a bad batch of what should be 6mm, sold cheap and still used. How many strands does it have? (how much can we debate this 2 inch of cable?)

 

[malcolmsanford]

1989 ........................could be a bit of old 7/044 or 7/036 that a sparks found in a bottom of an old pile.

 

[Amp David]

I've been told by the old boys that it is possible to order any size, any colour, any core you want from a manufacturer. Why they would go for this in-between size is any ones guess. I think it may have been a bad batch of what should be 6mm, sold cheap and still used. How many strands does it have? (how much can we debate this 2 inch of cable?)

Its made up of seven strands.

 

[Amp David]

Because they're yanks mate, they only have inches

Yeah, I know that. What I was meaning is why is it being used here in the UK, would of thought that in 1989 it would of been metric.

Can't see it being an odd off cut either, as there are 11 houses with the same install into the garage, all with a run of 12 meters.

 

[telectrix]

try measuring the resistance. and swg is english, it's them damn meters that are foreign. meters are for putting shillings in to make the lights work

 

[Amp David]

Whats SWG saint?

 

[telectrix]

standard wire gauge. as on 7/029, now replaced by 2.5mm. the 7/029 was far superior. just done a CU change where most was 7/029 for ring finals. 3/029 for lighting. all readings well perfect and it's 40 years old.st on case you don't know already. the 029 is the swg of each strand, and the 3 and 7 are the no. of strands.

 

[Amp David]

Take it the 029 is 0.029 inch diameter of the strand?

 

[SMB]

Ahhh...now I remember. 7029.

It is all stranded, including the cpc.

It had a shiney outer insulation compared with todays T&E.

Mostly, when ive been involved with it, during rewires its been ripped out because its part of a rubber installation (due to additions and alterations), it was always replaced with modern solid core PVC. I think it has a tinned ingredient to the copper?

Im sure the stuff is probably fine.

Edit.....infact I think the stranded cpc on 7029 might be a larger csa than the solid 1.5mm found in 2.5 T&E?

 

[telectrix]

Take it the 029 is 0.029 inch diameter of the strand?

nope, strangely, the bigger the number, e.g. 029, the thinner the wire. wikipeda has a metric equivalent chart. google standard wire gauge.

 

[telectrix]

http://http://www.diracdelta.co.uk/science/source/s/t/standard%20wire%20gauge/source.html

the first one. on the page

i think the system came in to being by measuring how many cables you could get into a standard apprentice's backside, hence the larger the no. the thinner the cable.

 

[telectrix]

Ahhh...now I remember. 7029.

It is all stranded, including the cpc.

It had a shiney outer insulation compared with todays T&E.

Mostly, when ive been involved with it, during rewires its been ripped out because its part of a rubber installation (due to additions and alterations), it was always replaced with modern solid core PVC. I think it has a tinned ingredient to the copper?

Im sure the stuff is probably fine.

Edit.....infact I think the stranded cpc on 7029 might be a larger csa than the solid 1.5mm found in 2.5 T&E?

yes, the rubber insulated older stranded cables have mostly all now perished, the later pvc are uaually still as good as new. and you are correct. the cpc was usually greater cross section than now

 

[rocker]

I come across 7029 all the time round here on domestics. As SMB said itr's usually tinned. It does usually stand up well in IR tests though I find it an absolute pig to work with.

 

[telectrix]

what's a pig. i find it easy. it's more pliable and doesn't set like concrete in the cold.as does the solid crap we have to use now.

 

[rocker]

Really? I find it gets really rigid, maybe where it's 'set' over time. Also it's a pain to strip, and if you're replacing an accessory with, say, a spur on it, it's really hard to get it all into one modern accessory. The main thing is, though, I don't like working with it because invariably whoever installed it twisted it all together to within an inch of it's life! Once untwisted it's IMPOSSIBLE to get all the strands straight enough to terminate properly.

 

[mogga]

yes, the rubber insulated older stranded cables have mostly all now perished, the later pvc are uaually still as good as new. and you are correct. the cpc was usually greater cross section than now

Had a few instances when I was a "Boy" near a large park where there was a sheltered housing complex wired with old shiney PVC which had attractive something that the Squirells enjoyed much to the delight of my gaffer finding them welded to cables

 

[cagedanimal2010]

coming from a youngish spark now, but i was at a house the other day where i was changing a few old sockets to new ones, and i was pretty positive that the ring final was in 4.0mm guess this explains it.
cheers guys!!!

danny