Picture of the week!™

[RF Lighting]

Back by popular demand.

Here's a bit of pyro porn

Enjoy

 

[ericmark]

Them were the days. In all my time I have only done mineral in collage. Never needed to do one for real. On the GEC generators there was one 7 core mineral and I did not do it.

 

[Adam_151]

Looks like the MICCs do to the lighting bars on the ceiling? Why MICC? I would have thought it a pain to route and terminate on the far end?

How old is the install? I am guessing mid 1980s

 

[securespark]

I used to do loads of it during my apprenticeship as my boss was MICC mad. Used to use it on domestic as well.

One of the jobs I remember was putting in a new socket on an outside wall, running the cable outside....top storey of a 3 storey Victorian house. Triple extension ladder with added w o b b l e...

Fantastic stuff to work with.

The cable, not the ladder!

 

[lloyda]

How old is the install? I am guessing mid 1980s

0844 numbers introduced in 2000 I think, so assuming that the cab labelling was done at the same time as cabling, that may help date it.

 

[seasickstevie]

... I remember was putting in a new socket on an outside wall, running the cable outside....top storey of a 3 storey Victorian house.

Trying to visualise why an outside socket would be run from the second floor

 

[ericmark]

Still used for churches although Ali-tube is replacing it in many places. At first glance hard to tell between Ali-tube and MICC.

 

[seasickstevie]

I would say the later MICC (post-80s) is usually a slightly darker orange.

 

[RF Lighting]

The install is in a 160 year old grade II listed building. It was installed in 1983-84. Virtually all the building is wired in pyro. Not sure if it was just the favourite cable of the day, or if it was chosen because the installation was carried out as part of a refurbishment following fire damage in 1982.

The cabinets are just jointing chambers after the stage lighting dimmers were replaced with the large sensor rack in the middle of the picture about 8 years ago.

 

[DetlefSchmitz]

It's also used in National Trust rewires.

 

[securespark]

Sorry!
It was an external wall but the socket was inside. Only the cable run outside.

 

[Spark123]

I haven't had to deal with pyro so much now as FP-200 seems to have replaced it in a lot of circumstances. The only times it generally faults and has to be worked on or replaced is when it is drilled through or it gets damp in one end, if it is metric it can generally be repaired without replacing the full length but imperial pots are nigh on impossible to get hold of.
I doubt a lot of sparkies trained after the millennium will have been trained on the installation of it.

 

[PBC_1966]

0844 numbers introduced in 2000 I think, so assuming that the cab labelling was done at the same time as cabling, that may help date it.

Yes, and Ofcom shows the 0844 555 range specifically as allocated in March 2002. A lookup on the nstage.co.uk domain shows it as registered to Northern Stage Services in Oldham on 20-Apr-2004.

 

[Echo the husky]

if it is metric it can generally be repaired without replacing the full length but imperial pots are nigh on impossible to get hold of.

I had to replace a damaged section of 2 core 1/.044 pyro recently, it was not possible to replace the whole length of cable as most of the length was buried through a graveyard(!) which would have required special permission to dig up, which takes months to obtain. Having run out of most sizes of imperial pots now and there not being a metric equivalent to to the tiny cables diameter, I simply silver soldered a larger 2L1 metric pot onto the cable, then filled and crimped in the normal way. A gas/oxygen torch is recommended in order to get everything quickly up to temperature to prevent overheating damage.

 

[RF Lighting]

You can resin joint pyro without a pot if you're really stuck.