Mains cable marked "Atlas Kablo" and "2010" may be sub-standard.
BBC :
Google :
BASEC :
FP Cables :
Maybe there should be a note in the FAQ?
This has been done to death in the "Bigger Oh shit" thread from a few days ago...
Perhaps, but I am not sure what useful information we could add at this stage. I have not been able to find the original information from their we site with the batch numbers affected.
Also it would be handy to know exactly what level of discrepancy we are talking about (e.g. if it was a case of the wire diameter was undersized, then the actual amount so that one could decide if identification from a simple measurement would be possible).
The bit I heard about it on the radio suggested the copper wasn't of a high enough purity. Introducing more resistance. So not easy to check yourself - unless the colour was very different.
It is a pity that the OP did not choose a helpful subject line.
And, yourself naturally excepted, most responders seem not to have looked for anything more technically authoritative than that the BBC page.
There's no need to add detailed information; a warning about "Atlas Kablo" and "2010" with a link to one or two authoritative Web sites should be perfectly adequate. For example, I first found :-
Basec Note On Atlas Kablo Cable 3 October 2017 (PDF 183KB)
FP Cables :
The cited pages say that the problem is insufficient copper, not impure copper.
I am surprised that the original news story on the BBC didn't give any specific details, either aimed at the end user or else at electricians - and any information about where to find out further details.
I pulled what I could from the wayback machine to see if they had a capture of the atlas web site with the advisory on it, but have not found it yet.
Which was how remembered it from when it was first mentioned in 2010. If that is the case then there are two approaches for identification of problem cables (having identified it first by makers stamp and date code). One would be if the diameter is measurably different - probably only useful at non stranded CSAs. The other would be with a R1+R2, or possibly Zs measurement. However that only yields a useful result if you also know the circuit length.
I *suspect*[1] that the risk is probably being overstated. It would have to be very undersized to lose fault protection in most cases. So that leaves some overload scenarios. Again its likely that we are talking cable life expectancy reductions from higher than expected conductor temperatures, rather than catastrophic failure.
[1] the devil will be in the detail - if we can find it.
The wayback machine has an archive of an ACI page about the flex
"identified an irregular strand formation on the 1.5 sqmm conductor of
27 strands of 0.19 mm diam ? most manufacturers use 27-30 strands of 0.25 mm diam for a 1.5 sqmm nominal cross section."But doesn't seem to have the corresponding page for the T&E in the archive
fication from a simple measurement would be possible).
Adam will be able to tell by biting it with his teeth, the same as he does with the plug nickels he is offered ;-)
That's quite a significant drop - in fact that could be only 50% of the expected CSA. I don't recall the T&E figures being that poor, but I don't think I had previously seen any for flex.
Using those numbers, I found this:
I found that using the ACI report's author "peter smeeth" in combinations with copper, cable, aci, kablo etc turned up various snippets. But it seems 7 years is longer than content survives on corporate web sites nowadays, and most of them weren't scraped by WBM.
There is a gap in consumer protection. Manufacturers/suppliers are expected to make available product recall data. But when they are no longer trading the data may - as with Atlas Kablo - simply vanish.
There is the EU RAPEX system but that didn't capture the data and I suspect might not if a similar fault was spotted today.
Since there is now this 7 years "testing period", there ought to be a case history of fires traced back to such poor quality cabling... Or, more likely, not(!)
Perhaps some of the consumer unit fires have actually been due to poor quality cable going high resistance at the terminals.
Owain
I can tell a 2.5mm from a 1.5mm and 1.5mm from a 1.0mm by my teeth, but alas should there be any 2.25mm (or whatever they sold) out there I would not be able to tell it from 2.5mm. The cable was also labelled up with the size it was supposed to be and with the manufacturers name and date of production on it.
It's now on our hit list of things to look for when at work, especially as many places that might have fitted it are getting ready for a 10 year inspection.
The O.D. does not really matter; for stranded cables, just measure the O.D. of a strand (with a sufficiently good micrometer or otherwise) and multiply by the square root of the strand count.
Indeed you could, but the measurement accuracy required gets harder to achieve.
Kind of makes you wonder if these cables are faulty or just incorrectly classified by the distributors.Also a bit of a worry if a lot has already been used before anyone found a problem. In practice I'd suggest it will never come to light, but who knows, you can hardly recall cable once its been fitted, who keeps records of which make of cable they put in to a given installation. Brian
Fraudulent might be a better term. They are (for example) marked up as being 2.5mm^2 T&E, but have a CSA of less than that.
Indeed... The recall resulted in a significant quantity being scrapped. However some will have got through the supply chain and into use.
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