Mineral Insulated Copper Clad Cable - MICC (Pyro) Repair Job
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- Опубліковано 19 жов 2024
- In this video I repair an MICC pyro cable that is running underground from our clients flat to their garage.
To rewire it would mean digging it up or running it along a wall which isn't the easiest solution. So I visited this client's flat a couple of times to repair the old MICC pyro cable. The difficulty here though is that it is in the old imperial measurements where today's measurements is metric.
So I obtained a variety of pots to make off the cable because the old one was damaged. But they wouldn't fit, they were either too loose or too tight.
So I got hold of a 3L 1.5 pot. I tried it and it was too tight. It's a three core where as the cable in question is a three core. So I took this pot to a shop that sells taps and the shopkeeper tapped it out to the next size. In this video I return to the job to see if it fits.
But as if this wasn't enough, there were some other issues. I needed to check whether the cable was functioning properly by running some tests.
A young man would do well to apprentice under this gentleman.
Or woman???
@@bordershader Dunno sheila he seems a bit too old school to appreciate a female apprentice unless he was 20 years younger.
@@CreatureOTNight dafuq you calling me sheila for?
@@bordershader 😂
Easily my favourite UA-camr, normal down to earth and no ego. Look forward to your next one.
Also love your glasses ha
Down to earth is a fault 😂😂
Ahhhh the days of being stood in a riser making off 6ft pyro ends on a 7 core cable...... I was good back in the day and still have my crimper, ringing and potting tool. You do remind of the guy I worked with when an apprentice, drove a Triumph 2000 TC and the other guy from Brixton we all called "Uncle" as he took us young ones under his wing.
Triumph 2000 TC- yes!!!!
Brixton man?
@@abdulseaforth6930 - The old electrician known as Uncle was from Brixton, the 2000TC guy from West London I think, maybe Hounslow way, myself I am from Shepherds Bush.
Never even seen anything resembling a pyro cable. Fascinating bit of technological history. Learn something new every day.
As an American, I've only seen MICC once, in a restaurant in Covent Garden, as I recall in a basement. I asked a friend who was an electrical engineer about what I described as "quarter-inch copper tubing used as conduit" (I didn't know what was inside) and said it might be a good thing to use around RF transmitters, etc., because of the shielding. Thanks for letting me see how it is used!
Well done ! Another successful mission and a relieved and happy customer. I reckon you've been an electrician for a year or two judging by your knowledge and the advice you give and I reckon you're a nice person based on the lengths you go to in helping your customer.
Another fantastic video Del. I used to do a lot of MICC during my apprenticeship. We had a contract on a few old buildings that required it. The number of times I made off a pot only to realise I had forgotten to slide on either the shroud, olive or gland 😅
Great video Del.
You see a lot of the usual sparking- which can be mundane- but you present skilled content ‘cause you’re skilled.
I loved pyro. Made off 1000s of ends on all sizes up to 16mm. Mostly used earth pots for a more reliable connection (take note Delroy :P). The usual problem from memory was after you screwed the pot on the cable, you had to look very carefully inside because often as a result of screwing it on, you would get a tiny slither of copper just inside the pot, but enough to touch the cores. Its a bit like a lathe can produce slivers of cut metal, but on a smaller and finer scale. We always used to cut off a good 1 to 2 foot then make the end up because the magnesium oxide inside was very absorbent of moisture out of the air, and was the usual reason you got poor insulation test reading. Used to use a 1/4 rod of metal with a slot in the end to remove the outer covering, similar to how you undo a cornbeef tin :) Oh, and a tip Delroy, never blow into the pot, i'm sure you can figure out why. Also, I used to do a ins test before crimping the seal in case the cores got twisted/touched whilst pushing in compound and subsequently pressing the seal in place. It was also a good idea anyway just in case you didnt spot a slither of copper as already mentioned.
Add pot test with a megger, add compound slide cover on then test again, crimp and test again.
Good call- not to blow into the pot.
My Dad used to love installing Pyro.....but that was 40 years ago. As a lad I was the electrician's mate. Great video.
Wow Delroy - thanks for transporting me back 35 years. Pyro was the bain of my life. That's all we ever did when I was an apprentice. Fire systems, communal lighting etc. I was never any good at it from what I remember - always made a mess with the compound.
I’m 22 lucky I worked with a few old sparks that showed me the ropes with pyro. I thought it looks so neat and it’s a good cable. I done the outdoor switches on my house in it, bloody expensive but prefer it to FP. One of the sparks I worked with was so good with it, looked like proper art work
Yes they use micc in parliament. I worked there for 18 years.
About 15 years ago i came across a micc that was from 1946!
Part of parliament got bomb in the war and was the first building to get
rebuilt, and that is when they used micc.
I just discovered your channel and got excited when I saw pyro! It's still used in old buildings such as churches and old wood-framed buildings etc. I love using it for a sort of retro "steampunk" look. It is somewhat difficult to get hold of now and it's nothing like FP200. FP200 is only fire-resistant which is good enough for most applications. Pyro is literally the melting point of copper. I get mine either second hand on eBay or from Remora Electrical who still stell a wide range of pyro. Also, when it comes to damp, a heat gun at 600 Celcius sorts it out. I can get a reading from under 1M to 999.99M on a 1000V test just by heating the cable where it has been stripped. Usually heating 15-20 CM back from the end is enough but sometimes you do need to half a meter or so. I've never seen the pyro junction boxes before - very interesting. Also, I never knew you could strip pyro with a pair of cutters. Great video - keep it up!
Great vid - enjoy your calm manner Del. Watching from East London.
Nice one Delroy , I once worked for a fire alarm company about 25 years ago who only used pyro for their systems and I got the job because out of 4 spark's who got interviewed for the job i was the only one who was experienced with using micc cable and the other 3 had never installed it which I found strange but I suppose some guys never touch it......👍
I worked for a firm back in the late 80's early 90's and we also installed all our fire alarms with pyro. I was only an apprentice back then but my boss used to have me doing all the terminations in the main panels as he reckoned I was very neat with it not that the other sparks couldn't be bothered with it . I loved them days .
I'm a fire alarm technician, and I'd only stumbled across it on a tyco F4000 system (one of the last here in New Zealand) and unfortunely conventional non indicating which was randomly faulting into fire. Took me 2 days of testing to find the faulty device on the circuit, but exploring around and seeing how it was wired up amazed me. So clean and easy to follow the circuits!
Really enjoy your videos Delroy, love the cool way you go about every situation you encounter. That old Pyro brings back memories and Crabby old sparks if you didn't set it right lol. Keep up the excellent videos. Nothing but praise for them. 9 ps. The old blow lamp trick often expels all the moisture )
I'm off to find my old pyro tools and do a repair next week , brushing up on old stuff learned & forgotten,Thankyou for your Upload
You take on some very tough gigs. Pyro is very old school and can easily be cocked up. Most modern day sparks would have to walk away from this job. Well done!!
Lovely to see mate. I know sparks who cant even do a set in conduit let alone do pyro. 👍
In my experience it's all about often you work with something. You can't do everything, all at the same time!
@@bitTorrenter You are so right, I'm old school and over the years I have met sparks who only do twin & earth and nothing else.
Must admit it is a lot of years since did any metal conduit so not sure if I could put a set in it any more. Pyro isnt too bad to do. You just need to take your time with it. End of the day nobody can be good at everything.
Nah, I believe you can still do it
Brilliant video, nice to see the old school electrics and you've given me a lot of knowledge. Most people would just say rewire !!!! but it is repairable and most wouldn't know what to do and think its great what you are doing.
I am a electrician in Jamaica I have always wanted to see how pyro connected thank you for that and I am have learned a lot watching your videos 👊👊👊
MIMS / MICC is my favorite cable to work with.
👍🏿
This video was great, then the rain started and it got even better! Nice one!
A superb job sir.well done.I worked on pyro ,many years ago.you did a crakin job
Well done sir.great to see you back.Cher's Ste.
Pyro is an art form! Lots of substations I used to work in were wired entirely in pyro. Looking at runs dressed away from the distribution boards was an impressive sight. Could be a bit of a pain if we wanted to make alterations mine you - trying to find a spark or wireman that could do it was a challenge! Kudos, Delroy!
Can’t wait to Watch this one Del ,I used love doing Pyros back in the day
Never got taught how to terminate pyro at college so thank you for this video!
Great Work Del , gave me a great insight into Pyro issues you rarely see on the job these days. Keep up the great work 🤓👍
I've been in that same situation, all I used was blow torch to dry it out, used a screw driver to strip but I had a potting tool and pliers as a ringing tool.
I'm retired and from a different trade but I was always interested to see how the pyro is worked on. That was a totally interesting video, thanks.
Can't beat old school tradesmen,done a pub refurb in London years a go ,the specs was everything in pyro,thought it was for extra fire protection but the architect told me it was to stop DIY sparks from adding to the circuit,once you get in to it it's a doddle,
Never seen the MICC, it is the first time, in Italy vinylpiobo was used, I can find nothing on the net if not some hints in Italian, 2 rigid vinyl insulated conductors, a very delicate pink rubbery sheath that peels off with the fingers, cast in the lead that makes an external coating such as the MICC, very heavy but easy to use coils, it was walled directly into the walls in the house, I have not found it for many years, thanks for this splendid video of a real old school. Ciao
The MICC is very fire resistant and can be used for alarms and emergency lights, or where you want to keep the fire risk extra low. It uses dry Magnesium Oxide as the insulator, which is why it is important to keep water and damp away from it. The copper sheath is the ground/earth. :)
From Google Translate - Il MICC è molto resistente al fuoco e può essere utilizzato per allarmi e luci di emergenza, o dove si desidera mantenere il rischio di incendio estremamente basso. Utilizza l'ossido di magnesio secco come isolante, motivo per cui è importante mantenere l'acqua e l'umidità lontano da esso. La guaina di rame è la terra/terra.
@@thesunreport Thanks for the explanation
I have no ties to electrics whatsoever but I love your videos you’ve basically taught me to be a spark🤣🤣🤣
Oh god
In Australia all electrical work has to be done by a licensed electrician.
This even includes changing a power socket or light switch which is a very simple task.
But most people don't call an electrician for these jobs.
Lovely video mate, perfect to chill out go on the weekend.
Nice idea getting someone to tap out the size.
Top video mate, good to see another spark doing his job properly, top work top bloke
This brought back some memory’s used to install this a lot in Manchester nightclubs around 15 years ago many a times I swore making pyro ends off don’t miss it one bit
Ha ha when you were drilling the subtitles said Music then when you stopped it said Applause 👏🤣🤣
My first ever job back in 1981as an apprentice working on a hotel near Harlow 1 of the sparks was very good and loved doing micc and was given job of outside lights in the middle of winter and then in the summer in the boiler house luckily not up and running and I helped
Good work del. Takes me back 20 odd years ago when I used to work on the old shell building near Waterloo Station. Did all the fire alarm system on those floors in bare pyro . Took weeks and weeks. Very satisfying tbh . Thank god for fp though lol. Much quicker and easier 😀
Missing ya Delroy, hope you and family are safe, and see you back soon....
You should tell your clients it's double time if they watch you work or if they have attempted to fix it themselves,I hunt my clients in the nicest way possible cos you need to keep your mind on the job especially with electricity,you're too nice Delroy
Awesome channel, used to work with pyro that had been disconnected and then tested under 1meg ohm, trick I used to do was use a heat gun on the last 30cm do dry out the moisture
Working with mi is not compulsory taught now. Luckily our tutor made us learn it because he said you would still come across it. Did say about the government buildings as well. Hated the stuff. Messy awkward to work with. Definitely needs some practice to master making it off. Enjoyed the video
God took me back I used to love terminating and installing pyro, I can still remember the pot blowing off explosively when I was training .
Must have been that vindaloo..
this channel is soooo underated omg
Hello Delroy, nice to see you making the pyro off, takes me back when I used pyro extensively, multi core mostly, often did hot seals where you brazed flexible & "tails" to the conductors inside the pot & used ceramic beads to insulate them, used where there was very high temperatures .. I still have all my pyro gear, pots including some imperial 👍 ( I'm 80 yrs.old ) from ☘️🇮🇪☘️
Ah the art of MI been a while since I’ve touched that if you know you know !
nice one delroy , takes me back 40 + years , we also used ali ali pyro which was easier to strip but more delicate to terminate .
Del Boy. In kent. Love the stuff. Still got the pot wrench. And joy stripper. Gis a shout next time u get one. Well done
Nice work, well done as always!
Tiny bit of grease on the neck of the cable helps threading the pot on. I think they use to provide a little tube of it in the pot packs
ive been a sparks for nearly 8 years now and never come across this good info to know thanks del
Never went to college lad?
@@nathangatenby5744 yeah i did they just never showed is that all they showed us was fp and the basics
It's fascinating friend..keep posting yr great mate
I always misread your username as "deploy the spark!"
Informative and enjoyable - thank you sir.
Great video!!!
Keep saying old school makes me feel old! It’s still cutting edge to me! Big screwdriver just as good to strip it and yeah put a heat source on it to get rid of moisture
Good.job mate
In that situation, run some gentle heat from a blowtorch to dry out the mineral insulation where its been exposed for a while. It's still used in churches and listed buildings very heavily
That would have saved a lot of stripping etc. If the new seal is good the insulation resistance will continue to climb and should reach 'infinity' after a few days.
Love watching your videos, cheers 👍
Used to see a lot of pyro on farms on old milk cooling systems where the cabling and pipework was run under the dairy floor.
Great job great man keep up Brilliant you a legend
Nice one, look forward to it
Back in 76 as apprentice, college would get you to make up a foot long piece gland to gland , full termination then immersed completely in a bucket of water, mine wasn't perfect, got 1 small air bubble come out, yep it went down to 10Mohm., I really enjoyed working with micc, but messy job with the Powder, I remember some having wedge pot's, and I understand that some were glass filled for in floor heating way back, never done them though, 1 common error some spark's would do is with volt drop, someone decided to run a 6kw Water heater on a 50 M run using 2.5mm micc, they could not understand why it wasn't heating right, well yep that cable did run warm for sure
My 1st job as an apprentice at 16 was to make off pyro ends, I was always told if u suspect the cable has damp issues, cut off approximately 12inches off, that is normally how far damp travels.
There's a couple of good videos on UA-cam by Pyrotenax and Wrexham where they show you how to terminate.
Did the circuit meet voltage drop calculations? Looked a bit far from the original?
Was an excellent video! Thank you
Did you try the insulation test before sealing the pot?
Haven't touched pyro in a long time. I used to find it easier to strip with a small pair of side cutters, just get the angle right to corkscrew the copper sheath and put the compound into just one side of the pot so it pushes out and fills the gaps
Don’t we all hate going back to the van in rain for one part 👍
Really great videos Delroy, I'm very interested in sparks but could you let me know how you found which wire was live in the garage from the board please 👍
Instantly liked when that text popped up xD
Enjoyed watching this 👍
awesome buddy, keep em coming your videos are a great watch :-)
Nice job
Delroy hi. I’m watching you put the pot on thinking you haven’t put the gland on first. Hope I’m wrong !
Lol
Just found this running to my garage
Wondered what it was called
Though it was a predecessor to swa
Glad I didn’t try to ReTerminate it🤪🤪
I've not touch pyro since I left college and that was over 15 years ago, would be nice to see if I still remember how to do it.
Im a pretty decent spark but have no experience of pyro except college would love to be in a scenario where I can have a few goes. Delroy is a veteran.
I can remember when I was an apprentice ,my father had a length of pyro left over from a job it would have been about 6mm 2 core and it was in a loop of about 6/8 turns and was about 1.5 m in diameter,Like Dels Pyro it was down to earth
So instead of drying out the ends in the normal way, Dad connected it up to mains thus the cable got rather warm but as it dried out it cooled down
how did he do that? Did you have a load on the cable
colin campbell
No ,no load ,the other end was terminated safely with tape etc
It was just the dampness held within the White power
So when current was passed down the cores was nearly shorting out ,
Use to clear damp ends with Wind-up Megger
Should the cpc be connected back at the source? Surely that should be TT that far from the property
Not really, the only thing that possibly could have been checked is the voltage drop and the earth fault loop impedance. regarding voltage drop its a bit of a farse today, since the European harmonization came into effect -6 to +10 based on 230 volts, the chances are very high that the voltage at the distribution is probably between 225 and 235 volts, so the 3 % voltage drop for lighting is a bit of a farce when you consider - 6 % of 230 volts = 216.2 volts. So lighting point at the garage the voltage should be well over this. Regarding the ELI providing the supply to the house is TN-C-S or worst case TNC the chances of the test failing is very remote considering the cable being used is a piro (copper sheathed), the size of the earth is far larger than the live conductors and the impedance would be very low. Nothing wrong with testing however and a small works certificate being issued. Not many sparks bother to be honest as this was only a repair job and nothing new really added. Delroy is old school and a great spark, would have loved to have worked with him in the past.
Good video
Done a load of pyro on a bomb storage site..get a blow torch on it to dry it out then seal it after a satisfying reading..don’t forget to discharge it
i worked on a construction that was designed in imperial...we had a mixture of both metric too...it was a nightmare trying to get the right pots to fit...
Never mind electric you are likeable man
The customer was a Copper checking to see if his definition of “pot” and Delroy’s definition of “pot” was consistent that is why he was asking all the questions. In that conversation Delroy implicated all his friends by stating that he new a few guys that did “pot” better than him. Those friends have all vacated South London and heading towards the Midlands.
You're an idiot!
I know i'm biased as a conduit loving USA electrician, but why not sleeve the pyro and other cable to protect it from physical damage as thats what caused the issue in the first place?
We would put it through a steel conduit especially in a lot of schools we worked in to avoid damage from kids and so on .
Yes conduit would be best. You have to remember that in the U.K. many houses and buildings tend to stay around a long time and you often get to a situation where you have to connect with older wiring. Even doing a complete re-wire would be a huge amount of work imagine pulling through conduit beneath the concrete as it leads to the garage. To do it safely you would have to channel and cut through concrete to ensure everything was up to code. In the USA where I now live houses tend to get rebuilt more often and latest codes tend to get implemented as part of the rebuild and it’s in my opinion much safer. That’s why electrical safety testing such a big issue in the U.K. you have so many old buildings with a rats nest of old and new wiring, old and new outlets, lighting circuits. Proving an old building is safe is critical. It’s only recently that I have seen residential testing becoming a thing in the US and it’s mainly only insulation resistance and earth testing. Of course there are experts out there who do it as a matter of professional competencies. However I do think that verification testing by county inspectors in the USA could adopt the testing protocols as in U.K. and Europe it would add greater safety assurance and provide an extra income for electricians in the USA who can regularly check the safety of older electrical installations. Soon enough insurance companies will be requesting it.
Could you not have used a gas torch to drive the moisture out of the cable end, then soldered the (drilled out) pot on the end?
I have some ancient (imperial) pyro in my home - that's what the local sparky had to do to avoid replacing hundreds of meters of the stuff.
You could have drilled the pot inside and soldered a 1.5
into the pot so you could have used the 3rd outlet on the biscuit. I’ve
done this in the past. You can buy pots with fly leads all ready on them.
Been ages since I did MI
Now how do you charge this guy for the time and knowledge... they wouldn’t like the bill! But want the job done!
Go on delboy
MICC cable needs to be treated very carefully for sure ...
Mike5 😂
Fuck ofc
Not seen them pyro clamp boxes for years
Great video next time blow lamp to remove moisture 👍
Strip old pyro then pull old core out of pyro pot and carefully knock old seal out from back of pot then remake off done this many times Pyro was a daily part off the job
You could tell the powder was damp as it came off I chunks and not like talc . You could have warmed up the sheath with a blow lamp and dried it out , takes a while but get it cherry Red . As said don't blow on it , just bend the cable over and tap it to get the loose powder out .
Why did you not just put a gland on before the pot then you could have gone into conduit through box. Would have made your life easier great video again though. I’m still installing 7 core piro weekly
I haven't worked on pyro since the 80s. Not sure I remember how lol