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Thermal imaging of cables

Jam
Hi all,

So it's a little sunny out, and I have a phone-mounted IR camera, so I thought I'd leave some offcuts of larger cable out to cook in the garden and sense-check my derating assumptions for cables in direct sunlight.


However, I've only really used the IR camera for differential inspections (i.e. that phase is running hotter than the other two) and not worried terribly much about the absolute values, which do change significantly depending on the material emissivity setting.


Can anyone recommend a source for aluminium and copper conductors and black PVC and MDPE / HDPE sheaths after exposure to normal installation treatment? (I.e. sheath roughened a little from pulling in, metal dulled from oxidiation, but neither burnt nor mirror-polished)


The difference between the sunny and shaded side of a 45mm OD single core is quite telling; might try a bundle in trefoil tomorrow!


Jam
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    That’s grand thank you.


    FYI, My Seek Thermal has options of 0.3, 0.6, 0.8 and 0.97 which isn’t exactly fine-tuned (but then again it doesn’t pretend to be a fully featured device either), but taking the closest would suggest a sheath and conductor surface temperature appx 30oC above ambient in free air, though the shaded side of the sheath is 10ish lower. Offcuts so no gain from load. Slightly higher than I’d expected, but that’s surface temperature not ambient air.
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  • 0
    That’s grand thank you.


    FYI, My Seek Thermal has options of 0.3, 0.6, 0.8 and 0.97 which isn’t exactly fine-tuned (but then again it doesn’t pretend to be a fully featured device either), but taking the closest would suggest a sheath and conductor surface temperature appx 30oC above ambient in free air, though the shaded side of the sheath is 10ish lower. Offcuts so no gain from load. Slightly higher than I’d expected, but that’s surface temperature not ambient air.
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