Bad cable

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Oakey

Oakey

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New Jersey
Recently I wired a large scale home ,actually a renovation. While energizing the circuits today I had no neutral in some recessed lights and traced it to a defective cable on a three way loop. I removed the 14/3 wire from the walls and opened the sheating up to discover a broken white wire. I didnt feel comfortable using another neutral in the same (box 2 cir in box) and I'm glad I didn't, so I ran another wire. Hard call given the fact that its freshly sheetrocked but thankfully not painted yet. This is the first for me does this happen often?
 
Only one time in 30 years. I found a bad conductor in the middle of some buried UF cable. The thing drove me nuts for about an hour digging, cutting and testing. I narrowed it down to a 2 foot section that showed NO signs of damage on the sheath. It had worked for several years BTW.
 
I've seen it 1 time in 27 years.
22/3 alarm cable.
Drove me nuts before I found it.
 
Twice in my career I have found factory splices beneath the insulation, and both were in 14/2 cables. The ends of the copper were obvious, as was the splice. The manufacturer must somehow connect them together without solder. But neither was bad, I just happened to strip the wire there and found them.

Next time I run into one, I'll take a photo.
 
had it happen to me w/ cat5e, and once w/ my previous employer w/ southwire 12-2. they gave the company a free 250' coil of 12-2, which btw didn't pay to replace all the drywall that had to be cut out, then replaced, then painted. w/ the cat5e, i used an entire 1k box in one home, had 3 runs w/ 6 of 8 conductors broken. supply house took care of me on that one (private label stuff).
 
480sparky said:
Twice in my career I have found factory splices beneath the insulation, and both were in 14/2 cables. The ends of the copper were obvious, as was the splice. The manufacturer must somehow connect them together without solder. But neither was bad, I just happened to strip the wire there and found them.

Next time I run into one, I'll take a photo.
Click to expand...

You know when you find a splice in Romex, don't strip it - return a 12" piece with the splice in the middle and you get a free 250's roll.
 
480sparky said:
Twice in my career I have found factory splices beneath the insulation, and both were in 14/2 cables. The ends of the copper were obvious, as was the splice. The manufacturer must somehow connect them together without solder. But neither was bad, I just happened to strip the wire there and found them.
Click to expand...

I've seen this a couple of times myself. I wonder how many times I haven't noticed.
 
I'm not too good at discriptions, but I'll give it a try - I have noticed a slight "lump" in the romex jacket. When I strip that section, one of the insulated conductors has a 3" or so length of what looks like heat shrink. Knife it open, and the conductor looks like it was brazed together at that point.

I haven't seen this recently, and as I said, only a couple of times total. I would have taken a picture of it if I had had a camera at the time.
 
I've found that a couple times, when I was skinning out the romex at a box. As John describes, it has a real thin heat shrink type of stuff over the actual conductor under the sheathing. The copper itself appears to be "spot welded" to each other at the butt ends, sorta the same way you fusion weld fiber. Since I've found it a couple times skinning out boxes, I'm sure I've installed quite a few. Never found such a splice in MC cable or on a roll of THHN, however.
 
ive seen this a number of times. sometimes the sheath has a little bulge in it, thats when I cut it open to see what is going on and usually find s splice in the wires
 
I've never found such a splice in NM, but I did once find an uninsulated splice (a knot would be more descriptive) in the middle of a roll of THHN/THWN on a gas-station pull.

I couldn't believe it. :rolleyes:
 
a while back i was pulling 14-2 off a 1000' roll, and after roping 10 or so cans i noticed that there was no ground wire in the cable. it was there for the first 20' or so then dissapeared, and reappeared at the end of the roll. returned it to the supply house but can't remember what my boss worked out with them.
 
LawnGuyLandSparky said:
You know when you find a splice in Romex, don't strip it - return a 12" piece with the splice in the middle and you get a free 250's roll.
Click to expand...

I had to strip it to even notice the splice. The insulation was just fine.... it was just the copper that's spliced.
 
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