what is the worst cable you have stripped?

[shanky887614]

stripped some about 5 X 5pair version of this



swa is fine, the stuff we stripped though was like the one about but it took longer to get rid of the screen because it was tapped as well than the strip and terminate the gland


can't find a picture of the cable as they were existing so i don't know exactly what they were (control wiring)


it had a blue sheath though

 

[Brightspark2]

Some shocking SWA. Outer sheath stuck the armour, inner sheath stuck to the cores, absolute nightmare!....

 

[Plonker 3]

LSF, bloody hate stuff. Working in Shopfitting I work with it far too often.

 

[Thefailsafe2012]

LSF, bloody hate stuff. Working in Shopfitting I work with it far too often.

Yep, the amount of times I've nearly given myself a black eye stripping lsf, specially on a chilly day!

The worst cable I've had to do though is exactly as brightspark says, SWA where the insulation was stuck to the cores and it was a bleedin' mare to strip it all off. It was all made off in trunking as well so I had to strip a fair few feet of it back and all!

 

[trev]

LSF for me too, it's bloody awful stuff. FP is marginally better

 

[shanky887614]

Yep, the amount of times I've nearly given myself a black eye stripping lsf, specially on a chilly day!

The worst cable I've had to do though is exactly as brightspark says, SWA where the insulation was stuck to the cores and it was a bleedin' mare to strip it all off. It was all made off in trunking as well so I had to strip a fair few feet of it back and all!

The stuff today was horrible.

5 pair swa with screen around each pair.

Then another screen around the lot with a lot of tape that snaps when you try to take it off.

Then a pvc layer before steel then a blue layer.

 

[danzor]

Same with the SWA, nothing worse on a cold day picking bits of rubber off cables

 

[WaterSparky]

Sounds like it is for analogues control signals? 4-20mA? Got a reel of this blue stuff in the workshop as a matter of fact. but only 1 pair!

 

[Sintra]

Worst I can remember was a 19 core 1.5mm pyro that had to be stripped 1200mm to get into a BMS panel.

 

[markc123]

When mr.electrician installs the ring-main with absolutley no-slack ... cables get fried, sorry sir i can't just replace the socket, and yes the IR is good now the bad bits are chopped out ... but you still need it re-wired...that's the worst, stripping the cable of its dead ends knowing fine well it's going to be pointless.

Big SWA on a cold day, yep. And then on the other side of the scale ... FP200 - you need a brain surgeons touch not too damage the inside cores...or maybe i can be too rough handed at times lol

When the wholesaler gets a bad batch of T+E aswell, like cutting into a brick.

 

[Fin170]

VIR/cloth/ rubber crap in old conduit, never intentional to strip it though, as soon as the accessory is moved the cable is written off

Have also stripped SWA which would not come away from the armour and smelt like cat ****

and SY flex.....which is just crap

 

[ipf]

10mm 3 core pyro, damaged due to industrial kitchen fitters. Came out of a piece of 25mm conduit, presumably protecting it as it came out of the concrete floor. One core had snapped off at the pot/disc, another hanging on by a thread. About a foot of cable to work with. After about a couple of hours trying to re strip and pot, the cable ruptured where it came out of the conduit.
Thankfully, it was a job trying to rescue other peoples cock ups and I got the job of replacing the supply with swa, fed from above.

 

[Robotstar5]

Cheap XLPE SWA, everythings stuck together, you can't ring the core insulation and pull it off as it's stuck to the copper, even the copper itself seems "harder" to work/bend.

 

[overskilled]

SWA with that sellotape plastic between the cores and the PVC sheath under the armour...horrid stuff
especially with Niglon glands...I hate those things with a living passion...stupid design, try to tighten, cores pop out due to no lock ring.thrown a few supplied ones away and replaced with tower glands...

Old pyro I hate too, especially when a socket has been in and out in and out 10 dozen times before...

H05RR-F...not too bad to strip but don't like the smell

 

[Des 56]

A armoured cable that had no outer sheath and was frozen solid

The cable may in fact have been easy to strip, I will never know, but my frozen pinkies told me it was a nightmare
I learned from the experience,I decided I never wanted to become a cable jointer in Siberia

 

[Sintra]

Remember doing a couple of bootlace SWA's into isolators in Prague during the winter. Was -23 and a total pain fingers were numb after a minute.

 

[Des 56]

Remember doing a couple of bootlace SWA's into isolators in Prague during the winter. Was -23 and a total pain fingers were numb after a minute.

I bet the nights out as a single in Prague made the pain that much easier to bear

 

[Sintra]

Well I must admit working in Praha for 8 months was fun lol

 

[Robotstar5]

Probably the "fiddlyist" (is that a word) I have done was 3 cables each with 7 x 7 cores (total of 147 cores) made off into high density Harting plugs. I hated having to fit the spare to a machine as I knew it would take me the next 2-3 shifts to make a new one!.

 

[gnuuser]

pulling an IS machine controller cable and pinning it in the connector
1 inch thick cable of 50 conductors
a beast to pull through raceway as it very heavy

 

[Knobhead]

Never had a problem with large SWA’s in cold weather. Helps having always worked on kilns and furnaces, just roll the drum under the kiln for a day or so.
My big bugbear was as others have said, no French chalk and the serving stuck to the insulation/armourings/cores/its self on the drum. Had it on all kinds of cable and can’t point to one particular manufacturer, all seemed to have off days.

Had one that really confused me. My mate and I had made the supply off to a MCC everything OK, went to the switchgear stripped the outer serving and armours off, at that point we both got very confused. Went back to the panel the inner serving was extruded, back to the switchgear it was taped ? ? ? ?
We had run a few cables the same size, must have got them mixed up somehow. Did a few quick tests, we’d got the right cable. All the cables had come off the same drum, some were taped some extruded.
I do remember who supplied this cable, BICC. Phoned them up with the batch number, “Oh that’s where it went. You shouldn’t have got that.”
It seems they can swap servings without stopping the line, we copped out for the bit in the middle. It tested OK so it stayed in.
That’s going back some time, it was just before I came out of my time.

 

[Deleted member 9648]

Not the worst by any means but ancient Hi-tuf is in the top ten. Outer sheath made of granite and cores and inner sheath welded together....fun on a cold day.

 

[Kate]

Lsf. I have given myself black eyes, cuts to eyebrow forehead many times!! You bleed more when its cold.

Have had a few t+e with no powder in so sheath stuck solid. All swa's have been good

 

[shanky887614]

Lsf. I have given myself black eyes, cuts to eyebrow forehead many times!! You bleed more when its cold.

Have had a few t+e with no powder in so sheath stuck solid. All swa's have been good

T+e knife down middle?

 

[Thefailsafe2012]

Worst I can remember was a 19 core 1.5mm pyro that had to be stripped 1200mm to get into a BMS panel.

That sounded fun :sad:

 

[baldsparkies]

What is the worst Cable you have ever stripped !!!

Tony Cable from the NICEIC !!
Not a pretty sight naked lol.

 

[Engineer54]

Double steel tape armoured cable, that stuff top's anything that's been mentioned here so far!! lol!!
I'm surprised that Tony didn't bring it up in his post above?

That steel tape can be like sprung steel, i defy anyone stripping/terminating that cable not to cut their hands to ribbons. Single steel tape cables were/are bad enough, but the double steel tape cables are an absolute nightmare. Thankfully you don't see them much any more, but are still produced for locations where additional mechanical protection warrants their use. That would mainly be in heavy industry situations...

 

[benji]

stripped one end of a .3 dwa pilc at cotgrove colliery in the sixty,s kept burning my fingers cleaning armours it kept the jointer amused

 

[CockneyReject]

35mm 4 core LSF armoured I did the other week tops my list, been sat outside for a week so was solid then the outer sheath stuck to the armour, inner sheath took some getting off too then there was the plastic crap aswell, had to strip 3m then fight getting it over the containment and into the trunking

oh and then after that there was 30 rings all in LSF twin to put away into the power side of the board

 

[Sintra]

That sounded fun :sad:

Absolute nightmare. By the time the cores where all lined up to get the seal on the moisture was already getting into the mineral.

 

[SPARTYKUS]

Well I must admit working in Praha for 8 months was fun lol

I found "de meh pousoo prossimme" worked well

 

[Des 56]

I found "de meh pousoo prossimme" worked well

Even Google blushed when I tried getting a translation on there

?????

 

[SPARTYKUS]

Even Google blushed when I tried getting a translation on there

?????

Sorry its 'phonetic' as in spelt completely illedgedly but if you said it as written, so to speak, to an attractive young Lady in Praha, she would probably smile and commend your language, at worst slap you, at best do as you are asking & kiss you

it means " give me a kiss, please"

 

[Sintra]

Remember we used to get certain phrases for certain nights lol.

 

[SPARTYKUS]

Wish id worked there for 8 months, you lucky guy

 

[Sintra]

Yes it was one of the better places if been. Saying that I'm working in Dusseldorf now and it's not bad

 

[Des 56]

Yes it was one of the better places if been. Saying that I'm working in Dusseldorf now and it's not bad

Not too far away is Aachen,used to be great nights out on the town down there
Get yourself down there I am sure the girls are up for a little pousoo prossimme

 

[Sintra]

Just looked on the map and it's only an hour away. Might be worth a visit provided the beer is as cheap as it is here.

 

[DanielB]

The worst cable I have ever stripped is a cable known as ALPEX it is a 3 core aluminium cable with aluminium neutral strands in a waveform pattern so it can be stripped down live the neutral strands lay on a rubber bedding underneath the PVC sheath and it can be an absolute nightmare to strip as the rubber bedding can stick to the cores and it's even worse in the winter months when you can't feel you're hands. I prefer to strip down the old PILCSTA cables (paper insulated lead covered steel tape armoured). We get a lot of neutral faults on the ALPEX cable as all it takes is a hole in the PVC sheath and water gets in and as the neutral starands are aluminium over time in corrodes and turns to a powder and can cause some serious problems and can be cause a very dangerous situation.

 

[mechelec]

PILC (paper insulated lead covered) with tape armours. Covered in pitch, oily cores or as bad if they are dry and the papers unravel. Time consuming and messy. Do it live to make it more interesting.