RIVETER

I have used it's sister/brother... clad in aluminum.Very labor saving but as said about MI cable sometimes hard fit into the terminator connectors. Do not use pulleys for long pulls. The flattening of the circumference makes it impossible to get into connectors.

cdnelectrician

Seen that stuff before...do they still make it? I know Pyrotenax makes stainless steel MI cable. Can you imagine working with that stuff?

I used to work in a plant where everything was in MI cable. It was probably installed in the 50's. I should have taken pics, those guys did some NICE work with it. It looked like it came from a factory.

RIVETER

I would have to think that it is still used but I don't know for sure. the AL cable was really great where you have a lot of cables in a pipe rack. You could make it into hand made concentric bends and get three to four times as many feeds in a pipe rack as with conduit.

cdnelectrician

Anyone remember a cable that had an aluminum sheath but inside of it was a single TW75 conductor? Also have seen this sort of cable but with multiple conductors. You could score it with a knife and break it open. Not often I have run into it but it is out there.

RIVETER

That could have been what I was referring to. It's been a long time since using it. We used it extensively in paint factories, ink manufacturers, and chem. plants.We made early errors in pulling in the longer runs thru wire reels. It didn't take long to realize to slip 15 or 20 feet of it thru the reel without stressing and stationing a man at every reel to make sure that that footage of cable remained ROUND so it would go through the connector at the panel.

cdnelectrician

The stuff I was talking about was terminated with an L-16 (AC90 connector). There may have been a proper connector for it, but whenever I have come across it, they had just used an L-16.

RIVETER

Wow, been a long time but I seem to remember a connector labeled ALSJ, and it was, I think supposed to be named after the guy who developed it.

nolabama

never used MI - btw has anyone seen MDShrunk lately - he on vacation?

__________________
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macmikeman

I've torn plenty of it out doing retrofit jobs. I do not like it much myself.

te12co2w

MI= mineral insulated. I worked at a powerhouse where they used a lot of MI. Mostly for heat trace, but also in some explosion proof and corrosive areas. It is difficult to deal with. Not too bad if you can just lay it along a pipe, but when you have to wrap valves and fittings it takes some work. All the stuff we used was pre-made to length, so if we used up too much wrapping the fittings, then we could be short at the end and have to start over. Alot of places we had to wire two runs together and sometimes the connections were in series, not the standard parallel. New guys who didn't know that could have problems with the breakers tripping. We used stainless worm drive hose clamps to attach to pipes.

sparky105

Hydro plants, hospital emergency curcuits and class 1 div 1 Like refineries very popular places for MI

But now we use this crap called " life line"in the hospitals and I can tell you some horror stories about pulling it.

william1978

I was thinking the samething. It seems like he hasn't posted in awhile.