STRIP! - fantastic - with Gary Hayers GSH Electrical and Gordon Routledge
when you've got a strip! don't talk I think we need to talk about this in a minute we'll do
now today we're looking at fake and substandard cables now believe it or not someone has sent
us in these two beauties let's take a little look at one subtle difference between them
those conductors on the end there look a little silvery to me gordon i do well we might have found
a generous manufacturer but i actually think these are aluminium so i just took the side
cutters and just scraped a little bit more of that copper coloring away and there you can see that
silvery material underneath which i suspect is aluminium okay well i'm still hoping it's silver
so we need a test cable so we've got a cable here that's exactly the same length as the one
we think is aluminium we've shorted together the ends and we're going to measure its resistance so
we've got two meters of conductor here that we're going to measure its resistance of
and if we get this as our test one what would you expect to see on the second reading well
hopefully we'll get a reference off the copper cable here so i'm just bringing the tester there
and okay so we've got 0.02 ohms okay so if the the next cable we measure is aluminium with the
resistivity of aluminium being higher than that of copper the resistance will also be higher but i've
still got a small hope that it could be silver and considerably less well that's christmas started if
we cash in the silver cable okay somehow i suspect yeah it's quite light isn't it yeah flew into shot
there so again let's just reconnect those leads up okay so when press the button this time expect it
to be higher press the right button gordon the other one thank you okay so well it's only just
a little higher goal i'd say that's 50 percent higher so you may not think that makes much of a
difference but let's see what happens when we load it up so built this across at the efix technical
center i threw a little bit of loft insulation under half the cable just to see what difference
that makes and then at the end we've got a double socket loaded up with two two kilowatt uh electric
heaters first time we've been warming the unit for ages so that might be making a reappearance
so this should put it under some thermal constraints in other words we're going to
be measuring the temperature of the conductors as they rise up for the first four minutes so we'll
do the copper cable first i think you've got the matrel uh thermal imaging camera there to
bring in so we're at four minutes gordon so let's bring that in and see what temperature we're at
yeah so just let's have a look at the cable just outside the insulation so here we're getting
there so 28 degrees moving where half the cable is covered in insulation you would expect it to get a
little bit warmer yeah so that's at 32 degrees okay so after four minutes we're in about 32
degrees there in that thermal insulation so we'll repeat the process by adding the four kilowatt
load to the aluminium cable and see if that makes any difference so we're off and running with that
we'll just give it a a little while to get warmed up so we'll go back in at four minutes so we've
got a fair test of the actual cable itself so there we go so it's getting up to four minutes
so i'm just going to bring back in the in the infrared camera so again you can see the cable
so already you can see it's uh warmer than our copper equivalent again going to the insulation
and we're up at 36 degrees okay so i think we'll just obviously i think it's still still rising
so i'll keep the uh keep the timer running so here we are at seven minutes so we're on the
aluminium cool yeah yeah pretty warm outside yes we're getting up towards 38 degrees and
then we were half covered with insulation we're up at 46 degrees so now let's just see
the equivalent of the copper cable back at seven minutes as well just to see what difference that
makes us probably we're getting towards some sort of thermal stabilization so the copper cable
means again back in with the infrared camera and there we go so we're 30 30 degrees and
then back into the uh into the insulation area and it's a lot less so 36 on here getting up for
10 degrees difference that uh yeah that's that's a third of a third of a difference
in the resistivity of the cable has made so hmm that's not a not a great situation
okay amazing isn't it really i mean let's think you can actually get a cable that is copper clad
aluminium okay and that's fine but possibly not when it's masquerading as pure copper cable and
probably trying to charge somewhere similar to but not quite the price you might have paid for
proper copper cable and another little trick they can do as well is obviously not have quite
as many strands in the uh one that's masquerading at the same cross-sectional area so that's another
little trick as well well so i have to count the number of individual strands on there and compare
yeah exactly we have heard that on quite a few occasions that yeah you might buy one reel and
it's perfect then on a possibly another shipment there's a strand missing and you know why would
anyone really i can't not understand why you'd want to do that i mean what's the difference
between copper and aluminium well i would imagine in the pocket quite a lot isn't it so
that brings us to that fake cable massacre raiding as a copper cable booming aluminium and it was
considerably lighter as well wasn't it and let's not forget this was a real cable that was sent
in that somebody found on sites or was actually being used and yeah was found to be in a dangerous
condition so watch out for fake cables we've got some twin and cpc or twin earth cable in front
of us here this isn't fake what would we suggest this one is uh we'd suggest this is substandard
and we're going to have a little look at some of the aspects that would make it substandard but i
think you found the first one gary well imagine we've uh rewired the property just imagine it's
domestic dwelling we've put all of this cable in you're not going to know that there's an issue
until you get to that second fix a bit we all enjoy doing floorboards are up chasing's been done
all the graft and yeah as i took my combination uh strippers here i actually uh removed everything so
i was down to copper so just show us yours if i bring the hound camera and show us how it should
be done with that doncaster cable yeah so this is our again we like these strippers because
they make life very easily so we've got these an ideal check out the video we made on those
yeah just here goes oh there we go that was easy okay pull our outer sheath off let's go back in
for the inner conductors oh that is nice and easy okay and this is the point when all that
hard work's been done and we're second fixing yeah so i'm gonna brave myself for my moment
okay i'm gonna i'm sure the strippers first so let me bring myself in so here we go let's go in with
the strippers first i'll just take a little bit off what you did all right you've seen we've done
two operations in one yes straight down to you know so you can easily then connect it into the
electrical accessory so obviously not acceptable if i go old school and blame the tools gary you
know me i like to like to blame the tools well just see it work perfectly let's go old school
let's just take a knife uh perhaps score around and see if i can get it off the old fashioned way
yep french chalk seems to be at a premium
lost exertion i've seen you see oh yeah right again just gonna get this off now imagine being
second fixing and faced with this you know it's all been plastered floorboards are down
wow that is incredibly long area making it look hard
yeah because it's easy
oh yes there we go so that's it that's off that's lovely yeah one down to that one shall we bother
with the second one yeah go on wow so you can see straight away that it's uh not quite up to
the stand of the cable you just stripped off but i don't think the store is going to stop
there with how difficult it is to strip court no that'll do okay i'm ready to second fix now yeah
yeah oh can you imagine can you imagine getting to second fixing and finding your cable strips
like that that's awful would you have a choice would you take it back out gordon or would you
have to would you have to sort of solder on for that installation we used to think what was the
most expensive cable the one you didn't put in but yeah in this case the most expensive one could be
the one you did put it that's substandard and and possibly bought on price again so if if they've
gone to no effort to make it easy to strip i would suggest what other corners might they've
cut gordon uh the one we also hear is yeah check that that cable reel has actually got
100 meters of cable on it because that's one of the tolerances what we're talking about here and
we'll come back to that in a little while but yeah one of the easiest tolerances to save on
yes is is possibly not put 100 meters on the real plus or minus yeah well i'd suggest minus okay so
so okay coming back to that in a moment we've got we've got a cable here we've wound this out they
are identical length um we did this off camera and we're going to measure its resistance yes
we're going to compare our doncaster cable that we trust we've seen that cable being manufactured we
have seen the processes they go through to ensure consistent quality yeah and those quality checks
because they make this stuff in what was it 10 000 meter reels we saw it being made in yeah oh yeah
just yeah it just keeps going you can't believe how much stuff there is so if it's difficult to
strip have they cut back anywhere else so let's start off with its resistance i'd like to suggest
it's at the identical ambient temperature and they're identical in length um and we'll have a
we'll have a go at measuring its resistance so you get your leads ready there so i'll bring here so
what we've done here is we've connected uh at the end we've connected the cpc to the line conductor
okay so we're just going to measure that at the and this one's a doncaster one isn't it
yep so i'm just going on the first one here okay see if i can remember how to work the metronome
so test they're ready to measure exactly the same conductor length and temperature so what reading
have we got here so the first one is point two seven of an arm okay so point two seven and one
okay try and remember so this is the substantial uh substandard cable sorry apologize yeah swap
it over and do the same measurement again you can tell yeah i know there's a little bit set
at a moment down there so make sure we're going to repeat the measurements remember 0.27 going
into this let's measure again 0.3 of an arm not a massive difference no no but a difference but
a difference yeah and we played around with that in a couple of different ways to get the reading
when we did individual conductors there was a difference when we doubled the length there was a
you know difference etc so there is a difference in the resistance so what's that suggestion about
the amount of copper maybe in it suggest when again when we're playing with that tolerance we've
decided just to thin that copper down a little bit just to be able to stretch it out a bit further
and when you're making hundreds of thousands of meters that's going to make a big difference
in perhaps your bottom line ton of copper yeah expensive stuff so let's just perhaps we'll have
another look at that gary well let's have a let's bring in measure it are we yeah bring in the
calipers right okay so we'll have a little look at measuring this one so there's a reasonably uh
reason record so i can measure a fat finger there okay yeah okay so i'll just check it just check
that one out yeah okay so we have a few attempts at this don't wait until we get a really exhausted
it should be at least one point seven four seven five six six yeah that makes sense which is
actually where around you'd expect it to be obviously as we can get a bit thinner right
let's check on our substandard cable 1.64 yeah that's what i got when i was practicing with
that you know 1.6 somewhat thinner i would suggest gordon as you look at my drawing here of the good
cable i've taken some measurements i took several measurements and come up with really an average
of those measurements see our dimensions there about 1.76 millimeters for the diameter of the
live conductor cpc at 1.35 overall diameter of the cable at 9.8 millimeters but let's look at
what we've suggested is the ugly cable yeah okay so yes it does seem to be
under on all the measurements so 1.65 millimeters and 1.28 for the cpc so yeah it's
if you're going to save a bit of copper you might as well be consistent about it
so across all dimensions we're a little bit smaller but of course when i go and get my
100 meter drummer cable gordon um there's another trick there gary because what we've also found is
if you're going to save a little bit of conductor diamond you might as well just
chop a little bit off the length as well we've heard a plus or minus number haven't we for some
cable manufacturers maybe plus or minus three do they ever overshoot by three tens no no it tends
to be always underneath so yeah you might buy a hundred meters and actually only end up with 97.
however if you were to buy the doncaster cable the cross reference cable we've been using today
against this one we're calling the ugly cable you actually are guaranteed 100 meters of cable
that's it well i've done all those test carrier but we started with a thermal test yes perhaps
let's just have a look if that just thin slither of copper that's missing does make any difference
in the thermal performance are you suggesting that the thinner cable may get hotter as well
let's have a look let's have a look at that asset so here we are then gordon we've got our
two heaters again two heaters straight in so that's four kilowatts on there nice and warm
lovely at this time of year just what we need i noticed they're both pointing at you as well so
okay so how long do you want to leave this on for uh so i thought we'd give this ten minutes okay
let's uh just to give it plenty of time because obviously not as a severe situation as we had with
our aluminium cable earlier yeah you know we're talking small differences between that resistance
right yeah so obviously the conductor size is slightly smaller this is the doncaster code
we're going to test first so be interesting to see what temperature the conductors rise up over
that 10 minutes so we expect it don't we as we we measured between the two there to be a difference
not a huge difference i wouldn't imagine but there will be a difference as we build that temperature
up in the cables so uh 10 minutes it is gordon yeah getting nice and warm here that's what we
like i have to do this test again yeah i know here we go so we're in we're in at ten minutes
um i'm gonna bring in the metro uh thermal imaging camera again so you can see that's
up at 30 just under 34 degrees okay so 34 degrees after 10 minutes and that was four kilowatts did
you say four kilowatts on there okay so be interesting to see when we move across to
the second cable um what sort of temperature that is so knock those off and let's move it across to
what we're calling the ugly cable next so um that one's heating up nicely now
so 10 minutes gordon yeah yeah 10 minutes against the game there was a four minute mark we haven't
got any flames or anything we're not expecting a massive difference but just a subtle difference
between them yeah there's been subtle differences all the way so it should be slightly hotter i
would suggest so here we go 10 minutes you said 34 degrees on the doncaster cable yeah this time
yeah getting up towards 38 degrees so yeah sort of four degree temperature rise between them
yeah so yeah so if you're going to take a little bit off here and a little bit off there and a
little bit off air eventually it's going to come to a little bit off everything isn't it yeah
and it's really how much do you really save across a real account a few pounds and is the
effort in the saving of the cables gordon or is the effort and money in lifting the floorboards
chasing the walls and connecting the accessory on the end is there that much to be saved by maybe
this ugly cable yeah and the kind of tip what we found through yeah dealing with now multiple
fake and sub-standard cameras there's a feel to the cables i mean it's so strange that we're even
saying this but there's a there's a kind of some of these cables just feel a little bit odd they do
so if you're used to working with a particular type of cable you get used to what that feels
like it's spot on that subtle difference that says hold on this isn't quite what it should be
you know interestingly our substandard cable has bare sec on the side okay to stop you there if
you're going to take a little bit off the size a little bit off the insulation a little bit off the
length and not maybe put as much french chalk in could you just put basic on it anyhow yeah and you
could and there's there's absolutely no easy way to tell where that cables come from so there's no
no markings on the reel okay you know i like to know there's a brand and if there is a problem
and yeah everyone has problems from time to time there is somebody you can actually get in touch
with to raise a concern or you know see what the if this is really the cable because obviously
sports people could even fake the marking on the cable yeah doncaster actually put doncaster on
there cable we've got no name on this one have we no it's uh it's marked up by the person to
distribute it and i'm told that you can trace the manufacturer by another secret number on there
that can change from batch to batch so you might buy from a distributor one month
and it's from a certain factory and that's flops to another factory another month so you might
think oh yeah that cable is good but then you buy another month and then suddenly that cable's
not so good and if you're proud of it you put your name on it and it's
a British cable and that Doncaster cable was the one that we used in this against this what
we're calling the ugly cable so we looked at a fake cable today one that was pretending to be
copper but it was actually aluminium we looked at the ugly cable so i suppose this would be
the doncaster cable and the flex that we use the good so we've had the good the bad and the ugly
before he goes there i'm gonna move on quickly we're always interested in your comments have
you come across a cable that's really difficult to strip and what painful experiences did you
have on doing that on the installation leave those comments below have you got any cables you'd like
us to have a look at again reach out to us in the normal ways on social media and perhaps we'll have
a look at those cables we're always interested in your thoughts so please leave them below