Identifying Your Requirements
Selecting cable that’s best for purpose:
From a project management perspective, there are four core criteria for cable selection:
- Ease of termination: Speed and convenience for wiring technicians
- Electrical performance: Minimum insertion loss and best phase linearity
- Ease of handling: Flexibility, ruggedness and longevity
- Price: Not just per-metre prices but the installed and commissioned price
However, often the choice of cable is not made at project management level.
A “first-fit” contractor is only interested in ease of handling and speed of deployment. A wiring technician’s selection will be based on ease of termination and not a care for the system performance. The system engineer will be interested in electrical performance and who gives a damn how difficult it is to terminate? All parties are interested in price only if they are paying!
The prevailing criteria to select cable should depend on the project. Bear in mind that selection can have a very significant impact on overall installed cost and performance.
