cable ties in an industrial setting

[afritze1]

I was recently audited and was told that the looped spare cable on my buss drops could not be tied with cable ties because they will degradate the wire casing. I'm told, I should be using Velcro. Has anyone encountered this before?

 

[Jraef]

I was recently audited and was told that the looped spare cable on my buss drops could not be tied with cable ties because they will degradate the wire casing. I'm told, I should be using Velcro. Has anyone encountered this before?

I've seen it with EPR rubber insulated MV cables, but you should not (cannot) tighten a nylon cable tie tight enough to affect the insulation on something like THHN.

 

[infinity]

I was recently audited and was told that the looped spare cable on my buss drops could not be tied with cable ties because they will degrade the wire casing. I'm told, I should be using Velcro. Has anyone encountered this before?

Sounds silly to me, what kind of cable are you using for the drops?

 

[zbang]

Even on the various type S cables, I think you'd be hard-pressed to pull them so tight as to cause a problem, and why pull it that tight, anyway? Now if they meant that the material of the tie would degrade the material of the jacket, I'm not buying that either. And I'm much rather have a couple of cable-ties than a velcro strap; those I have seen come loose. This assumes a good quality UV-resistant tie, not one of the dirt-cheap white nylon ones.

 

[SceneryDriver]

I was recently audited and was told that the looped spare cable on my buss drops could not be tied with cable ties because they will degradate the wire casing. I'm told, I should be using Velcro. Has anyone encountered this before?

Who audited you, and what qualifications do they have to make that call? If it's an inspector, ask him to cite chapter and verse of the violated section of code. Velcro is a terrible idea. It will creep over time, and a gentle tug will probably cause it to release. There are probably millions of feet of SO-type cable held up with zip ties in the entertainment industry, and I've never heard a whisper of a problem from all those installations.

As to the cable ties damaging the jacket, I call shennigans. There's simply no way a nylon cable tie can damage the jacket. A metal cable tie, maybe, but not nylon. The cable tie will break long before the cable cares. There's also no conceivable chemical reaction that I can think of that could cause the jacket under the cable tie to "degrade."

Please post back; I'd love to hear the reasoning behind this one.


SceneryDriver

 

[just the cowboy]

Sounds like a big company audit

Sounds like a big company audit

When I worked for a large manufacture, we would have inhouse audits, and things like this came up all the time. Somewhere sometime someone hung weight on a cable and it cut into the cover, so the fix is to never do that again, not fix the problem that someone put too much weight on the cable. Change it for the audit cause you won't win.

 

[SceneryDriver]

Just wrap velcro over the cable ties. Problem solved!


SceneryDriver

 

[templdl]

My experience was no concerning the use of ties themselves but with how they were attached.
I got gigged on a medium voltage switchgear job that I supplied to a state university where my factory provided the stick on type wire tie bases instead of the screw-on type that the state had specified. Being that replacing them with the correct type would be a monumental task it took some negotiations to make the problem go away.

 

[SceneryDriver]

My experience was no concerning the use of ties themselves but with how they were attached.
I got gigged on a medium voltage switchgear job that I supplied to a state university where my factory provided the stick on type wire tie bases instead of the screw-on type that the state had specified. Being that replacing them with the correct type would be a monumental task it took some negotiations to make the problem go away.

I actually agree that the sitck-on zip tie pads are about useless. The foam tape is cheap and will fall off in as little as a few days if there's any force on the wires. I consider the tape usable for positioning only long enough to get a screw installed. In the rare instance I've had to use them without a screw, I've peeled off the supplied foam tape (pretty easy, actually) and used 3M VHB tape in its place. THAT tape is wonderful - it'll stick wet ice cubes together. If only I could find the pads with the 3M tape pre-applied.



SceneryDriver

 

[Aleman]

I actually agree that the sitck-on zip tie pads are about useless. The foam tape is cheap and will fall off in as little as a few days if there's any force on the wires. I consider the tape usable for positioning only long enough to get a screw installed. In the rare instance I've had to use them without a screw, I've peeled off the supplied foam tape (pretty easy, actually) and used 3M VHB tape in its place. THAT tape is wonderful - it'll stick wet ice cubes together. If only I could find the pads with the 3M tape pre-applied.



SceneryDriver

Yeah those don't work too well. Lot's of people use them though and in places where you can't put a screw through them, like on panel doors. They look great for awhile and then come loose. The only saving grace is that by then wire memory keeps things roughly in place. One time I saw a machine with the door controls tied to unused solid core wires to keep the harness from sagging.