Wiring advice for outdoor supply

[Tom Humphries]

We have a thick cable leading to the pond area in the garden. It has a breaker at the house end. When we moved in it had a standard household socket box on the garden end.

After redoing the pond I decided to put a weatherproof junction box on the garden end of the cable to wire my pond pump and UV filter to.

The cable is really heavy duty, the live and neutral have about 6 thick rigid wires in each, and the earth's wrap around the outside of each wire.

My box only has fairly small holes for connecting cables - like you would have on a normal household plug.

As I'm not able to get all of the wires into the connections I'm not sure what to do. Would it be ok to cut a few strands off to get them in? I think i could get 3 or 4 of the thick strands connected for each. There wouldnt be that much power drawn by the pump...Otherwise what are my options? I don't want to run a whole new cable from the house.

Thanks

 

[telectrix]

a photo would help. you could terminate the thick cable into a IP rated adaptable box, then run a smaller cable to the socket. would like to know what size breaker is at the house end.

 

[Tom Humphries]

thanks, maybe these will help?

 

[Spoon]

From what I can tell by the pics, the first pic is just the RCD for the cable going outside. What is the RCD wired to? A bigger pic showing more of the wiring and consumer unit may help.
Also the 'weatherproof junction box' is only rated for 5A. Is that enough for your pond pump and UV filter or is that just the fuse rating for one of the outputs?

 

[DPG]

When you say the earths wrap around each wire - do you mean there are earth strands around each core? Or is it one lot of steel strands around all of the cores? Can't tell if that's standard SWA (steel wire armoured) cable from that photo.

 

[westward10]

That is not swa, those strands which look like armour appear to be tarnished copper.

 

[DPG]

Yeah I was thinking it looks more like some shielded cable someone has used.

 

[Tom Humphries]

The part i think is armoured isn't in photo, I could take a pic later. Tbh I'm just going to get a spark to do it I think cos I have no idea really and I might kill myself

 

[Tom Humphries]

And there are strands around each core, dpg

 

[DPG]

I think you are right to get a sparky in yes. And that cable does not look like the correct type.
Let us know what he says if you don't mind.

 

[SparkyChick]

It's an interesting looking cable, never seen anything like it. What is it?