paulears Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 My friend who used to work for railway telecoms & signals told me recent damage was far more regular than the reported theft of cables in the papers. The cables do have poison in them, but it also means great care is needed handling the stuff. Trouble is, the poison kills the rats AFTER they do the damage. It's a punishment, not a deterrent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 I used to work in railway telecoms and I've never heard of that. Jointed plenty of fibres and copper cables which were definitely non-toxic. However there was great concern over Weil's disease when cable jointing. Main hazard to railway cabling was people continually stealing it not rats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 This would have been from around 1976 through to probably 92 ish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Ok I did 91 to 95 in Leeds area, though most of the cable was eons old, except fibre. The railways were very regionalised, could well have been different in different areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigclive Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 A few years back on the Edinburgh Tattoo the company that records the audio CD had their fibre optic link munched in half overnight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 off topic - but my friend found an old rubber arm when clearing out an old workshop with the coal brazier in the corner. After a day of breaking off two fingers and a thumb and waving it out the van window, the y got fed up and dumped it at the new workshop ten miles away. He got a visit from the police - demanding to know where he got the mummified human arm from, and wanting to know how the recent damage has been caused - apparently mutilating a body, or parts of a body is an offence. Turned out it had been chopped off in the early 1900s in an accident, put in the store, and forgotten about - where the oily atmosphere and heat dried it out, like jerky! Fibre optics would have been for the future, this was the days of telegraph poles still being in use linseed, and lots of batteries and relays, plus real signals, not these silly light up ones! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arenasou Posted June 7, 2015 Author Share Posted June 7, 2015 ^nice. Back to the OP though.. Conduit clearly the way to go, but what to use? I've considered rigid PVC, flexible PVC, steel conduit, flexible steel, even PVC drain pipe for larger capacity. I'm leaning towards flexible steel, looping to a JB at each unit. Anyone have any experience with what's best? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Pratt Posted June 8, 2015 Share Posted June 8, 2015 You can get fully steel wire armoured data cable... at a a pricehttp://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/CACAT5EslashSWA.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted June 8, 2015 Share Posted June 8, 2015 when you look at the price of flexible ducting ,plus the added pain of pulling the cable in, that SWA aint a bad price Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamharman Posted June 8, 2015 Share Posted June 8, 2015 Only down side is you lose the ability to pull anything else through later..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam2 Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 I would favour the blue plastic pipe as used in the water industry, as a conduit into which standard cable may be pulled. It is cheap, readily available, very tough, has a smooth internal surface, and comes in long lengths thereby eliminating joints which are a weak point. This type of plastic pipe is too large to easily terminate into electrical enclosures and also is only semi flexible, therefore at the ends use short lengths of flexible electrical conduit, these can be a simple push fit into the water pipe provided that the overlap is generous. Plastic water pipe is not intended for use as electric conduit and I would think twice about such use for mains voltage cables, but for DMX or other signals, why not ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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