Which I assumed to be a SWA submain.
Steel container below the fusebox?
- Thread starter jero
- Start date
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I wasn't talking about a fault on the part of the user, but a fault in the design of the trunking - they surely should be designed and manufactured such that turning the toggle to open the trunking does not put the contents at risk, shouldn't it?
Maybe
Even that doesn't always work, especially if there's loads of slack.
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I would say that one has to seriously question 'fitness for purpose'if opening trunking carries a significant risk of damaging the contents.
Yes it is a design fault and almost every 'alternative design' attempt has basically the same problem but a little bit different. One version was based on fitting bars across the open trunking then screwing the lid to the bars, in principle it seemed like a good idea but in practice a total PITA and possibly the worst design ever.
No point in being critical of a design, unless you can improve upon it. Another, maybe older style, had pairs of slots in the trunking, each side, into which a bar could be fitted, which had a threaded socket in the centre. Problem was, you were limited as to where the lid fixings were located, by the slots for the bar, and it was quite wasteful.
The way to deal with over long cables, was to form them into an elongated Z. Wood strips, or even pieces of plastic trunking lid, would keep the cables back, away from the lid fixings, if the trunking had short lips at the front edge. I'm surprised the manufacturers, didn't include such spacers, along with the trunking.
If I were working in the appropriate industry, then maybe I could.
There would seem to be more than one potential issue. The one which has been specifically mentioned, namely that of "a wire being sliced by the opening toggle" could presumably be more-or-less eliminated by having the 'closure mechanism' all on the outside of the trunking - perhaps not too pretty, but safer.
Exactly - if bits of wood or plastic are needed to render the product safe, then those things should surely be part of the 'design', and supplied with the product, shouldn't they?
After all, products which need them are not supplied with their strain-relief components 'absent', requiring users to improvise their own!
One of the issues which corrupts all sorts of ideas and designs is disturbing the contents. However all too often the work is being performed in a different place to where the wires are disturbed and damage occurs.
As an example the top is your design (no criticism), some work is performed to the right side resulting in the wire being pulled resulting in the lower fold coming from behind the inserted bar and being a fold tends to retain the fold which usually turns to one side and the space created by the inserted bars becomes a convenient void for it. In the very bottom (side) view shows the wire 'pops out' when the lid is removed.
The law of the sod stipulates that fold, loop or whatever we want to call it, is exactly where the toggle is.
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For one it's a hazard to anyone adding cables into a trunking system (precisely what it's designed for).
I was working in Exeter a number of years back on a Mobile site that had metal trunking. I went to remove one cover to see if I could run a power cable for a 4G cabinet and it blew a fuse as one single 2.5mm had a tiny bit of insulation nicked and as I turned the screw it shorted out and took the site down! Bang!
Thes things happen. However, are you suggesting that it's never safe to use metal trunking for anything (even if there are no joints/connections within it)?I was working in Exeter a number of years back on a Mobile site that had metal trunking. I went to remove one cover to see if I could run a power cable for a 4G cabinet and it blew a fuse as one single 2.5mm had a tiny bit of insulation nicked and as I turned the screw it shorted out and took the site down! Bang!
A similar thing can, of course, happen whenever one inserts or removes the faceplate screws from any electrical accessory (if it is still energised) In the case of an electrical accessory, one can (should) 'isolate' it before touching the screws,but that's less straightforward in the case of trunking such as we are discussing - particularly if, as in this case, one does not even know what is inside it until one opens it!
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