Steel wire braided (SWB) cable and cable glands

[minus3db]

Hello,

I am inspecting some equipment which includes steel wire braided cables coming into a control panel via cable glands.

The cable glands are not the armored cable type glands where the steel braid is grounded inside the gland; rather they are the normal pass-through type of glands. Each cable passes straight through the gland into the box, where it is stripped back and the conductors are terminated. The steel braid for each cable has been twisted together, covered with heat shrink, and terminated onto a ground bar. All of the work has been done very neatly.

Is this acceptable? In other words, is it an absolute requirement to use armored cable type glands? The steel braid has still been bonded to the rest of the enclosure via the ground bar; it's just not using the gland to do so.

Any thoughts on this are appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ScottyUK]

I would personally prefer to see a gland used, but the method you describe can be neat and functionally equivalent at power frequencies. If there is a lot of high frequency noise present on the conductors or the shield then the performance may be slightly different from an EMC perspective.

 

[JuanBC]

Hi minus3db,

Would you mind uploading a picture? We usually use armored type cable glands in Hazardous Locations.

I never saw what you describe but I think that its acceptance or not depends on the country

JBC
.......
"The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing"

 

[waross]

Is there an overall jacket over the braid?
It depends a lot on the environment.
It also depends on the AHJ.
The codes that I work under demand that every component be approved for the use that it is put to.
But, if in the opinion of the AHJ it is a safe installation then the AHJ may issue a jobsite approval for the use of the connectors.
Such an approval will be valid for only that project, or possibly only that panel.


Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter