Recent content by col

And they called an electrician? hope you charged the call-out fee

thanks for posting - I did so badly  :coat Why do these tests not try to be more practical, using real-life scenarios? Lots of changes to terminology & it seems to be more important to know what standards our test leads should be designed to than how to use them.

Good idea that Barx, almost wished we were using micc - almost :) It did seem ridiculously fragile, but not enough experience to know for sure. I suggested taking an off-cut back having figured we were given a dodgy reel, maybe compare it with whatever edmundsons stock.

Good idea, thanks Evans. I'll have to practice my terminations. Had been scoring the outer sheath then bending it backwards & forwards to break the aluminium, nicking the silicone in the process.  :facepalm:

Was that Prysmium too Barx? wondering if other manufacturers FP is any different? 

I suggested my mate take some off-cuts back to CEF to show them, but you're right, contacting Prysmium direct is a better idea.

expensive stuff, esp when have to re-run whole sections.

Hi all, spent today helping a mate install a commercial kitchen & we finished with 4 cable faults (2 each). I'm convinced it's defective cable because the inner insulation was so thin & fragile (you could easily strip it with a finger nail) they were being damaged on the aluminium...

Maybe they should start selling these again.

If there's never been a timer on it, you may not have the 3-core & Earth cable it will need. How about a humidistat fan instead? Might be able to change the switch to a fused spur if there isn't one already & if it's in a suitable area.

Thanks for sharing that Sharpend, I hadn't appreciated that they're looking for minimal gaps in the cable entries. (IP40?) Is anyone sealing them with silicone?

Integrated heat/smoke detectors have their place, eg if the client particularly wants to be notified (by SMS etc) if the smoke alarm triggers. But they're only viable if a few well placed internal sounders will be easily heard throughout the house.

Sensible, future-proof setup. PoEs are just 12v cameras which would otherwise be run with "shotgun" cable. Cat5 will be cheaper/thinner but that alone wouldn't persuade me to use them.

Been a while since I've worked on CCTV so I still think of DVRs & PSUs, not NVRs & PoE. I don't want to hijack your post, but I'd also like to know if anyone's using power over network routers, cameras, recorders etc? What's the point? I doubt there's any difference in quality as...

I used to service them, enjoyed it but was doing 50k miles/year and being on-call was a pain. Smaller companies mean you're on call-out more often but hopefully you'd have a smaller area to cover so less out of hours visits than the nationals