What type of cable is this?

[dokkan1080]

What cable is that? Coming from the gland?

 

[Lister1987]

And to think they dropped it from the nvq silibus

Which was the driving force behind me getting a set of tools and wanting to give it ago

 

[dokkan1080]

Fitted to seal the compound in the pot.

Not sealed properly, the conductors are not solidly separated.

Looks like the compound's solidified but moving the cores could cause serious problems,

Is there a way it can be done retrospectively

Or if its left alone is it okay?

 

[Lucien Nunes]

TBH I find it hard to believe the disc is missing. It does look 1960s which makes it imperial cable. They would be headed sleeves that pass through holes in the disc and the disc would be paxolin. That is why there are no bulges in the sleeves nor a rigidly parallel approach, and why the small area between the sleeves that is not plastered with compound looks brown rather than black.

I can see crimp marks too. One would have to be remarkably absent minded and unobservant to crimp a pot without a disc in. Especially with headed sleeves which you have to pull against the inside of the disc before crimping, which would just pull off without it.

My money is on it being correct but smothered in compound. But if the disc really is missing, no it's not OK. The slightest movement could cause a short, and it's probably not sealed so the IR will be very low.

 

[PEG]

Yes,with a proper physical inspection,and testing.

It is generally a high quality cable,and in terms of longevity,saving further waste,energy and pollution,it is one of the better environmentally sound uses of materials.

By rights,Greta's entire home better be wired in it.....unless she really dosent care....and just has t&e ?

 

[dokkan1080]

Is there a way it can be done retrospectively

TBH I find it hard to believe the disc is missing. It does look 1960s which makes it imperial cable. They would be headed sleeves that pass through holes in the disc and the disc would be paxolin. That is why there are no bulges in the sleeves nor a rigidly parallel approach, and why the small area between the sleeves that is not plastered with compound looks brown rather than black.

I can see crimp marks too. One would have to be remarkably absent minded and unobservant to crimp a pot without a disc in. Especially with headed sleeves which you have to pull against the inside of the disc before crimping, which would just pull off without it.

My money is on it being correct but smothered in compound. But if the disc really is missing, no it's not OK. The slightest movement could cause a short, and it's probably not sealed so the IR will be very low.

not sure if that's a better image of it

 

[Dave OCD]

Greta will have a small windmill then a bit of 1mm to a table lamp with a 2 watt led bulb. ?

 

[Dave OCD]

I'm pretty sure the sealing disc is there too, possibly just not the black we're used to seeing - could be discoloured from heat over a number of years ?

 

[freddo]

I also think the cap is there, it being the flat type with 2 holes.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

possibly just not the black we're used to seeing - could be discoloured from heat over a number of years

Paxolin discs for imperial cable were never black, they ranged from tan to dark brown. Here I think it looks mostly grey due to the compound smeared all over it, with a couple of brown bits showing through.

Anybody remember the compound being green?

 

[freddo]

Anybody remember the compound being green?

I have seen it used quite a lot. I had some here but it had gone hard so I threw it out.

 

[littlespark]

Showing my (relatively) young age. I only know black plastic seals, and grey compound. All metric sizes.

I do recall earth tail pots.

One job as a young ‘un was to strip around a metre and a half of around 4 dozen micc cables for the tradesman to fit the glands after me.
Day after day I went home looking like Casper the f**ked off ghost.

 

[Vortigern]

I seem remember it being blue. I always thought that blue tak was the old sealant being repurposed as pyro fell out of use and using up all the old stock. Not really!

 

[Pete999]

What cable is that? Coming from the gland?

View attachment 88051

MICC

 

[pc1966]

Why was it done like that in old buildings?

As others have said, it is a fantastic cable in many ways, but cost and skill level needed to use it makes it pretty rare now.

The first point (and where it remained in use until last couple of decades) is it is practically fireproof in both survivor in a fire and not being able to start one, so you would see it for fire alarms and emergency systems. Now we have a range of FP cables that are cheaper & easier to work with and "good enough" so that MICC has largely been dropped from this area.

That reliability aspect was a major advantage 60+ years ago when rubber wire might be lucky to last 25 years, much less if a difficult environment in terms of temperature or oil/fuel contamination. Now we take it for granted that good PVC wire (without abuse) will generally last 3-5 decades, but for large high-value places like factories, hospitals, ships, or major office blocks, at one point it was also economically worth doing (in the days when folk took more than a 3-5 year future in to account). Realistically, if you don't get water in to the mineral filling MICC will last for centuries without degrading.

These days it really is a bit of a speciality cable, you see it for big projects with very onerous fire requirements, or in some industrial cases where cables have to go through very high temperature regions, etc.

Finally it looks cool! Especially when bare and polished, you really get that quality steam punk look to an installation Or more practically if you need to put external lights, etc, on a historic building it looks the part (even if it really is a 1920's look on a 1700s building, to many it does not appear too out of place).

 

[7029 dave]

The sealing disc does look like its missing IMO.