Welding cable use and UPS??

Status
Not open for further replies.
MRI

MRI

Member
I had a friend call me last night and say that at the facility he works at, they want him to run parallel 2/0 welding cable in a cable tray between the battery bank and a UPS. He wanted to know if this was legal, all the cable says is 2/0 600v. No UL or cable type (Ex: TC)...

I told him I didn't think he could legally use it as it wasn't rated foe tray use (TC) as well as welding cable is just that...welding cable not building wire.

Your thoughts? I looked through the code book but didn't find anything stating that it can or can't be used.

Thanks~Mark
 
MRI said:
I had a friend call me last night and say that at the facility he works at, they want him to run parallel 2/0 welding cable in a cable tray between the battery bank and a UPS. He wanted to know if this was legal, all the cable says is 2/0 600v. No UL or cable type (Ex: TC)...

I told him I didn't think he could legally use it as it wasn't rated foe tray use (TC) as well as welding cable is just that...welding cable not building wire.

Your thoughts? I looked through the code book but didn't find anything stating that it can or can't be used.

Thanks~Mark
Click to expand...
See Article 336 Power and Control Tray Cable: Type TC.
 
You can get the proper cable that's extra flexible. I have seen welding cable used in many applications its not rated for, and I haven't seen a failure yet. The worst one was for a 400hp 4160V motor starter. It had tthe wrong CT ratio, so welding cable was used in order to pass through twice. It held for 10yrs before I discovered it and replaced it.

That being said, order the proper cable and you won't have any problems
 
It just dawned on me that your post is saying it is not Type TC cable... misread the first time around :mad:
 
Yeah, I have no doubt it would last and hold up to the load. My worry was what happens if there was damage to the equipment, nearby equipment or the building due to a fault in the cable and it was reviewed by an insurance company and the cable was discovered to have been used in an application it wasn't meant to be used in. Its in an industrial facility where all of the equipment is installed and maintainted by "qualified personnel".

Just trying to think outside the box....
 
MRI said:
Yeah, I have no doubt it would last and hold up to the load. My worry was what happens if there was damage to the equipment, nearby equipment or the building due to a fault in the cable and it was reviewed by an insurance company and the cable was discovered to have been used in an application it wasn't meant to be used in. Its in an industrial facility where all of the equipment is installed and maintainted by "qualified personnel".

Just trying to think outside the box....
Click to expand...

That would be my concern also. You can bet no one will recall telling you to use welding cable if there is damage from it.
welding cable can be had with an electrical rating but you also have to be careful to get the proper lugs. They have to be rated for welding cable too
 
You can get dual listed welding cable. The second listing is usually RHH or RHW, making legal for use as building wire. As others have said you would need wire connectors that are suitable for fine stranded conductors.

A few years ago I needed some flexilble cable for a emergency transformer replacement at a manufacturing plant. I used welding cable as that was readily available. I did some research on the brand of welding cable that I was using. This company also made a Type W power cable that would have been code legal for the application. The only difference, other than the listing, and the price, between these two cables was the thickness of the insulation. The size and number of strands in the conductor as well as the material used for the insulation were identical. The welding cable had an insulation thickness that was 50% greater than than of the Type W power cable.

But for the reasons cited in this thread, I would never use welding cable for a permanent installation.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
You can get dual listed welding cable. The second listing is usually RHH or RHW, making legal for use as building wire. As others have said you would need wire connectors that are suitable for fine stranded conductors.

A few years ago I needed some flexilble cable for a emergency transformer replacement at a manufacturing plant. I used welding cable as that was readily available. I did some research on the brand of welding cable that I was using. This company also made a Type W power cable that would have been code legal for the application. The only difference, other than the listing, and the price, between these two cables was the thickness of the insulation. The size and number of strands in the conductor as well as the material used for the insulation were identical. The welding cable had an insulation thickness that was 50% greater than than of the Type W power cable.

But for the reasons cited in this thread, I would never use welding cable for a permanent installation.
Click to expand...


I cant see welding cable having thicker insulation than type W.....W has two insulation layers with a braid of string between them.
 
MRI said:
I had a friend call me last night and say that at the facility he works at, they want him to run parallel 2/0 welding cable in a cable tray between the battery bank and a UPS. He wanted to know if this was legal, all the cable says is 2/0 600v. No UL or cable type (Ex: TC)...

I told him I didn't think he could legally use it as it wasn't rated foe tray use (TC) as well as welding cable is just that...welding cable not building wire.

Your thoughts? I looked through the code book but didn't find anything stating that it can or can't be used.

Thanks~Mark
Click to expand...

People often use 'welding cable' to describe extra flexible single conductor cable.

DLO or DLE cables, originally designed for diesel/electric locomotive aplication are available from several manufacturers, including Okonite. http://www.okonite.com/Product_Catalog/section7/sheet17.html
They can be oirdered with TC rating.

Watch out for two things;
  1. AMpacity rating of noon-standard sizes, such as 444.4kCMil
  2. Special compression - or other - connectors should be listed for high strand.
 
weressl said:
People often use 'welding cable' to describe extra flexible single conductor cable. ....
Click to expand...
And people often use welding cable. I have even found welding cable used by major drive manufacturers in the internal wiring of their drives. (and I am talking about welding cable, not cables that have dual listings or the other code permitted extra flexible cables)
 
Since this is betwixt batteries and UPS this'll be a DC line, my question would be what is the battery bank voltage? If its a 480V UPS then the batteries could well be over 600V.

If the cable insulation fails du to over-voltage then once the current starts flowing it'll be very messy indeed; UPS batteries have a very low source impedence....
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top