uv stable cable

Fred · 2010-08-31T08:30:02+00:00

Hi,I was reading somewhere about wiring those outdoor 150W (or 500W!)halogen PIR lights. Different web sites and forums have givendifferent opinions and I am wondering what is right/best?Since the light is mounted on a bracket away from the wall, it wassuggested that T&E should not be used because it is not flexible (OTOHonce positioned, will the lamp ever be moved again?). I also rad thatT&E is not UV stable. Another suggestion was to put the T&E in conduit but another web sitesaid that only black conduit is UV stable. Is that true? if whiteconduit were used would it eventually go brittle, and would it alsoallow UV through, because if so, that would defeat the object of usingit in the first place.Another forum said the correct cable to use was arctic cable becausebeing outdoors, the temperature can get very cold in winter but I'veonly ever seen arctic in bright yellow or bright blue. I'm looking forsomething prettier than black conduit or bright arctic cable! I know I ought to drill through the wall and run the cable under thefloorboards, then I wouldn't need to worry about anything along theoutside of the house, but that means making sure I drill at the rightheight into the floor void and not through the wallpaper of the roomabove or below! It also means having to move furniture and carpets tolift boards etc, which is a bit of a hassle. TLC sell hituf, which claims to be UV resistant but is there anythingspecial in it to make it so, or is all black PVC UV resistant bydesign? After all, aren't coax and external telephone cables blacktoo? Would any old black flex do?TIA

Aug 31, 2010 41 Replies

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Fred 15 years ago

Well there's a lot there that I didn't know. Thank you. I was only going by what I had seen in passing on the tlc web site, which says PVC and butyl (which I assumed was rubber)

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said the butyl reference is out of date, perhaps the reference to pvc is too?

BTW I said in an earlier post that the 300V cable was cheaper than the

500V version.

I see that TLC sell the 500V version by default:

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I have had a flyer from cpc in which the 500v is cheaper than the

300v, so there's no reason not to "upgrade" to the 500v rated flex. I think there were some specs on cpc that said the 300v flex had an overall diameter of 6.1mm and the 500v flex was 6.6mm. I never thought that half a millimeter would make so much difference!

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Dave Osborne 15 years ago

Rather the opposite. The butyl reference is out of date (but we know what you mean when you refer to butyl flex), whereas heat-resistant PVC (along with silicone) is relatively new to the market and some oldies would not automatically think of mentioning it.

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