Wire in flex!!!Hi

[SP4RKI]

Hi everyone, prob seen this before can you wire outgoing circuits in 3 core flex??

 

[7029 dave]

Hi everyone, prob seen this before can you wire outgoing circuits in 3 core flex??

Not me next.

 

[davesparks]

seems like theatre installation electricians just use what's on the van

Well I was going to be helpful, but that insult has change my mind!

For the record most of the installation work I carry out in theatres is either steel conduit/trunking or MICC.

I am also getting sick and tired of electricians who don't understand theatre, and it's unique requirements, doing EICRs or generally making an absolute mess of theatrical installations.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Yes when you see really crapola work on a stage install it often turns out to have been done by the general installers rather than the specialists, working outside their sphere of knowledge.

 

[davesparks]

Yes when you see really crapola work on a stage install it often turns out to have been done by the general installers rather than the specialists, working outside their sphere of knowledge.

It's the IWB made up with switched 13A sockets that sticks in my mind the most!
Apparently 15A sockets are illegal! [emoji35][emoji35][emoji35]

 

[rfears]

Ah 15A, luxury... my last but one theatrical installation was 5A throughout apart from the 5A plug to 15A socket specials we had for plugging hire kit into our dimmer circuits...

 

[Lucien Nunes]

IWB made up with switched 13A sockets

I've met one of those too, no bar-end box, no tri-rated, just 1mm² T+E threaded through, up the M12 drop and all the way back. FWIW 3-core flex would have been a definite improvement.

Then there's the problem of general architects specifying unusable kit. We had an odd one, only a small install (college theatre) with 48 channels or so, where the architect (singular) designed everything. It was a tall thin new-build box with static bars right up the top, you could hang as many fixtures as you liked but still couldn't light the space. Anyhow the cable specced was 3-core FP, 48 runs on an 18" tray running along the flank wall and up the USR corner. We laughed our heads off, but only managed to persuade him to go to 4C+E so we could halve the number of cables. Trunking was taboo. There were so many other problems with that job though, we let it ride. I think we had to go back after the main contractors had signed off and do a load of alterations to make it usable. Again, 18C flex would have been a massive improvement.

 

[Spoon]

Sounds like interesting stuff this theatre wiring.

 

[davesparks]

Sounds like interesting stuff this theatre wiring.

Not really, it's big groups of radials feeding single points in the same location.

 

[davesparks]

I've met one of those too, no bar-end box, no tri-rated, just 1mm² T+E threaded through, up the M12 drop and all the way back. FWIW 3-core flex would have been a definite improvement.

t.

That's nice!
Personally I detest making IWBs and we pretty much always buy them in now (it was someone's cost saving idea)

The only time I ever got satisfaction out of it was a circle rail bar.
The steel fabricators got the curved RSJ wrong a couple of times, the handrail had to be remade a couple of times, various other fittings were made with the wrong curve. They had all used fancy laser measuring systems and suchlike.
I went in with a mate and measured the curve with a bit of string and a tape measure to plot the curve on a bit of graph paper and sent that off to the fabricators to bend the scaff bar to that shape.
When the curved scaff arrived everyone on the site stopped work so they could laugh at us young lads getting the curve wrong and it being too late to remake it etc etc.
Needless to say it dropped onto the brackets perfectly!

(Me and my mate were the most surprised of the lot at how well that worked!)