SWA csa

Frosty69 · Apr 17, 2012

Unfortunately Tony I have had to find about 100 circuits up to now, it doesn't help that the place is really greasy and cables and boards are coated in all sorts, some of the distribution boards I have opened have lots of moisture on the buss bars etc. I had to turn part of the factory off as there was no cpc at board and people were saying they were getting shocks.
Its been taken over by a new company who are really worried about the electrics so its all getting updated starting in the summer but will take a long time and a lot of money as its been neglected for about 30 years!

alli · Apr 17, 2012

If you look at a 'modern cable' e.g. a 6mm2 cable compared to a 'old' cable of the same CSA. Is it just me or does the old cable always look like it is thicker! This may just be due to conducter insulation thickness being larger on old cabling or my failing eyesight, but there are a few times I have had to look hard to whether it is 4mm2 or 6mm2

Knobhead · Apr 17, 2012

Frosty, you have my sympathy. I worked on plants some of which some were built in the 1930’s. At times it was like trying to keep a museum going.
We were constantly updating things, one job I particularly liked was making off some of the original paper lead cables in to modern gear. The cables were like new and tested >30M Ώ, not bad for 50 years old as they were then. Mind you getting old imperial 0.3² inch in to modern hydraulic crimped lugs was fun, I had to ream the body out and then hammer the lugs on to the cable.

plugsandsparks · Apr 17, 2012

I have been staring at cables and must suffer now from size blindness. Its the most irritating part of doing an EICR on an industrial site. The way i approach it with stuff i cannot turn off is look at the breaker upstream and work out what size it needs to be for that size breaker then ponder is the cable larger or smaller than that number, e.g. if its a 200A breaker and it needs to be 70mm and i look at it and think it looks smaller than that i will delve deeper, if it looks well over 95 i think no problem and move on. I am having a particular problem with 4mm and 6mm conduit cable and the moment. Yes i do need glasses and yes i do use a big torch.