Picture of the week!™

[333rocky333]

Not sure if you can still get them, but there was a sort of resin filled plastic pot at one time, i think it was yellow and i think you squeezed it on with pliers

 

[stillp]

I have some imperial pots and seals somewhere...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

At first glance hard to tell between Ali-tube and MICC.

Try glancing after the fire.

Or use unsheathed MICC...

 

[john4703]

Pyro was great if you want a really neat install. It can look good across an old stone wall. I've nver used the covered stuff only the bare copper, used to use a blowlamp to dry it out if the ends were damp before the pots were put on.

 

[stillp]

I acquired (nice, elastic word...) a 50 foot length of Pyro to get power to the garage of my first house, in the 70s. It had been lying around in a college workshop for years, and had very low IR. Not knowing how far moisture penetrates into the powder, and not wanting to risk driving any moisture further in, I laid it out on the drive on some bricks, got two big paraffin blowlamps, pointed them both at the middle of the pyro until it was red hot, and gradually moved them apart so as to drive any moisture towards the ends. Of course it was right at the ends - perhaps in the last inch, maybe two. Oh well, only wasted a couple of pints of paraffin! Talking about this with my fellow technicians, we decided to explore the characteristics of Pyro a bit further, Made off the ends of a length, then tied a knot in it withe a megger across the cores to the sheath. Infinity. So, we heated it red hot and hammered the knot flat - still read infinity between cores, and cores to sheath! Wonderful stuff.

 

[Echo the husky]

Pyro was great if you want a really neat install. It can look good across an old stone wall. I've never used the covered stuff only the bare copper, used to use a blowlamp to dry it out if the ends were damp before the pots were put on.

About 8 months ago I wired an outside socket and light in the bin store area at the side of my house. I used bare MI there as I saw it done outside an old building and thought It would look neat. It's sort of a test to see how long it lasts before the wall causes the sheath to pinhole. Insulation tests this evening all show >2000MΩ at 1KV DC

 

[stillp]

When I'm in that part of the world again I really should go and see that first house of mine to ask if the Pyro is still there!

 

[Echo the husky]

For the scrap copper?

 

[stillp]

For the scrap copper?

No, to see if my handiwork has held up for 40+ years!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Learning how to install it is a pleasure yet to come.

 

[Adam_151]

Insulation tests this evening all show >2000MΩ at 1KV DC

That may hasten its dismise if repeated. MICC should not be tested at above 500v.

 

[Tipper]

It's also used in National Trust rewires.

The fire at Hampton Court Palace was around the mid-eighties so I presume since then NT has used MICC to guard against fire in old buildings, if they weren't already doing it. Many fires in old buildings are attributed to electrical faults...Windsor Castle obviously missed the upgrade until its own fire in the early '90s.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Wasn't the Windsor fire started by a dozy plumber with a torch? Or painter with a hot-air gun? I know that there has been a high-profile fire which was caused that way.

 

[DetlefSchmitz]

Wasn't the Windsor fire started by a dozy plumber with a torch? Or painter with a hot-air gun? I know that there has been a high-profile fire which was caused that way.

I seem to remember it was a spotlight too close to a curtain.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Could be.

All I remember for sure was that there was a significant fire somewhere which was started by a workman, not a fault.

Could well have been more than one...