Swa armour earthing

[brizospark]

Does the steel wire armour have to be earthed in ALL cases?

 

[telectrix]

At the end of the day, it boils down to what you consider to be safe or unsafe.
It can be argued that using the glands without banjos is no different to using brass bushes with conduit.
Although it can also be argued that the manufacturer's advise fitting them, and that SWA is flexible, so the glands are more likely to come loose.

good point. seen a few old glands become loose. one thing i disagree with though , is the use of those stupid thin steel nuts. dissimilar metals lead to corrosion. that's 1 good reason for using brass earth nuts.

 

[chronyx]

Is it against the regs to use steel gutter bolts/nuts to fix a 'banjo' tag?

I always see flagged it up on P.I.R.'s and suggest replacement with brass, but is that just in the tester's opinion?

 

[Deleted member 26818]

There's no specific Regulation.
It would depend whether the use of gutter bolts is indicated in the manufacturer's instructions.

 

[JonAW]

this seems to be a question with a lot of electricians. Nobody seems to have a definitive answer. At work there was an NICEIC inspector out inspecting our work. The question was put to him if it was necessary to banjo cables into steel panels etc. He replied that if it was going into steel then a banjo was not required. I have also come across sparkies that would book it as a fault. Personally, I don't bother using a flying lead if I've glanded into steal enclosures but anything else requires a proper earth. At work the practice when bolting into painted steel enclosures is to put the banjo on and bolt it to the enclosure, no earth. There is always exceptionally low R1+R2 readings which helps lower the Zs values. This is probably because the panels are usually bolted to steel structures which also hold the motors etc. Such a mass of steel it is near impossible to have a bad earth.