Pyro is...?

[Lucien Nunes]

Inspired by a couple of threads I was just reading - what do YOU think of MICC / MIMS / 'Pyro'?

 

[itselectric]

I, like a lot of others on here have installed a lot of pyro in various places.

Has anyone here ever installed almic, or alcumic. It
was brought out in the seventies during a copper shortage. As the name suggests the almic was aluminium cores and aluminium sheath, Alcumic was copper cores and aluminium sheath. It was the devil himself who invented it.
It almost put me off pyro for life.
Stripping it was a nightmare and when you pulled on the aluminium cores to straighten them, invariably they snapped especially the 2L1.5.

When using normal pyro I seldom had an end go down. Not so using this aluminium stuff. Happy days.

 

[VoltzElectrical]

pyro is.... not used much anymore. I stand by my comments on the other thread!

I would have liked to have lived and worked in an era when it was though. Quite enjoyed it at college.

 

[ipf]

Same time as 'copperclad', that was a load of rubbish too

 

[oldtimer]

My house as wired in it in 1950 all thats left is the lights and they still have an IR reading of >299 as long as you leave it alone lol

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Has anyone here ever installed almic, or alcumic

It was before my time so I've never fitted it, although I would very much like to get hold of some samples. Coincidentally, there is this thread here: http://www.electriciansforums.co.uk/electrical-forum-general-electrical-forum/80401-whats-box.html which seems to show aluminium-sheathed cable in smart black PVC oversheath. Nice looking stuff, I suppose in that size the al conductor is heavy enough to survive handling and make sound connections given the proper lugs.

Copperclad aluminium I have never handled at all either. All interesting bygones I need to search for...

 

[itselectric]

Alcumic and almic tended to have grey outer covering. Possibly to distinguish it from normal pyro.
I did a path lab in our local hospital with it, but it is long gone now so no chance of finding some there.

 

[Fin170]

Everything wired in it at power station we're decommissioning, lovely stuff but will point out that the junction and switch boxes of the era are crap and shatter if you sneeze on them

Would of loved to of worked with it (or done the job in the first place) but when you find the 4/6 core 6mm equivalents...must of been a nightmare. However, given the cost of it and now local batteries are much cheaper (and better really) it's use is going to be pretty limited

 

[Brightspark2]

I actually laughed out loud at option 6!....and voted for that ha ha



It is a great cable though, rare to install it these days...

 

[cornishboy]

Pyro is great stuff installed loads when I was an apprentice on boiler houses for MOD seperates the men from the boys had to gland off lots of multicore cables once did a 19 core cable took two of us to put the pot on right with out it all touching they should be using it more for fire alarms as it lasts for ever, ive heard it is no longer in the AM2 test as its now an obsolete cable so think ehat you want of that, could never understand why orange was the standard colour although you could get red, white or black as a special

 

[Engineer54]

Pyro is great stuff installed loads when I was an apprentice on boiler houses for MOD seperates the men from the boys had to gland off lots of multicore cables once did a 19 core cable took two of us to put the pot on right with out it all touching they should be using it more for fire alarms as it lasts for ever, ive heard it is no longer in the AM2 test as its now an obsolete cable so think ehat you want of that, could never understand why orange was the standard colour although you could get red, white or black as a special

Who the hell comes up with these gems?? The AM2 Test is more obsolete than MICC cable!!

Orange is, ...or was the standard colour for electrical services....