Following an episode of depriving three flats of mains power for 8 hours I thought I'd buy some of those cheap volt sticks mentioned here recently. Seem to work fine on ordinary cable but not on my armoured incomer. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this but clearly they're not gonna stop me drilling into another armoured cable. ;-) Out of interest, would the type of armour make a difference (say steel versus copper)? Tim

They aren't meant to be cable detectors. Surely a proper detector would be better?

Do "volt sticks" work on armoured cable?

Mar 18, 2016 23 Replies

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Bruce 10 years ago

I have never (until now) heard of the outer conductor in a concentric cable being called armour. To my mind it is just a concentric conductor.

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The Natural Philosopher 10 years ago

Wrong. They use steel armour. Copper is not an 'armour'

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ARW 10 years ago

Yes. Point noted and I was wrong with what I said.

It was more to say to newshound (and other posters) that there are cables with copper not steel "outers" that look like SWA. The clue being in the use of the letters SWA.

Cheers

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Adam Funk 10 years ago

You're not doing this internet argument thing right! ;-)

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