Tyco Self Regulating Heat Tracin Cable

The cable will have a low resistance at low temperatures and higher resistance at higher temperatures, which is a characteristic of self-regulating heating tape. Provided the supply can handle the load at low temperature then there shouldn't be a problem. If it can't then the solutions are to use a shorter piece of tape or to divide the tape across a number of supplies.

Dear, Sir

the prblem is that when we switched the power on and checked the voltage at heating element terminals it showed zero volt & the pipe didn't heat up then we measured the insulation resistance between the two heating wires which gave low resistance. Does that mean the heating element is s/ccted?

pls advise.

It might mean that a thermostat upstream of it is set too low.

As noted your thermostat maybe set to low (assuming one was installed). Having worked with heat trace for a couple of years I would suggest that you check your circuit breaker and make sure that it is not tripped, if it is you will need to check every connection in the heat trace before proceding. If the breaker is OK make sure it is in the ON or energized state then verify that you have power at your thermostat. If it is ok you can now set the thermostat to a temperature above current ambient so that it energiszes the heat trace and check for voltage.

It would also be a good idea to find out how much heat trace was installed and recalculate the current draw, I have seen heat trace installed in 2000ft circuits at 5W/ft and placed on a 20 amp breaker needless to say there were problems with the breaker tripping untill the heat trace was split out a little.

Another great option is to give Tyco a call, I have talked with their staff many times and have have had good results.

Hello,

You need to connect it to power ;o) I will exclain it to you.

I had the same problem before, And I found that the cable is made of 2 wires ;o)

Thoses 2 wires have some silicon (orange, grey or ...) to prevent contact with external parts.

The cable is connected to power with a dark plug; The concept of this plug is to cut the silicon and touch the wires by pressing. Unfortunately the distance between the 2 wires is less than the 2 cutting parts and so most of the time only one wire is connected to the power, not the second wire.

So you need to take care to be well aligned when you connect your cable to the power with this plug before pressing it.

And that's all.

My reply:
The Question completes in 2 postings of Adam

Original Posting:
I have installed self regulating heat tracing cable ... but it looks like the cable is shorted when i check the resistance between the two wires it gives low resistance.
.. does the conductive core surrounding the two heating wires show low resistance between the two wires at low temperature when measured with a Digital Megger?

and

#2
problem ..when switched the power on ..
voltage at heating element terminals ... zero
pipe didn't heat up
insulation resistance between the two heating wires ... low resistance.
Does that mean the heating element is s/ccted?

My question :
1. Is Voltage OK before switch-on?
2. Does the Heating supply support full-power needed for heating?

If YES in both ... Surely Cable is at fault .. s/ccted

otherwise check the Power-Supply & connecting circuit.

A common problem is making trace heating cable so long that the power supply cannot cope with it, as its overall resistance decreases with length and the corresponding power draw increases with length (which is what one would expect).

Here's another thought: take a spare piece of similar trace heating cable at the same temperature and measure both its resistance and its length. Compare it with the installed cable.

Does it satisfy the relationship:

Resistance(installed)/Resistance(spare) = Length(spare)/Length(installed)?

If it does, the installed cable is probably OK. If it doesn't then either the installed cable or the spare cable, or both of them, may be faulty.

If the cable has been designed and installed by the same supplier, one could get the supplier to demonstrate the cable is effective before paying the final invoice provided that a requirement to demonstrate exists either in the supplier's offer or the purchaser's specification. If the requirement doesn't exist, or hasn't been offered, then "caveat emptor" applies.

When we commisioning Self regulating cable, we shoot the pipe tempurature, then we dig out the data sheet graph and find the cable output wats at the tempurature, we find the pipe operating at.

On some Self requlating cable 65F will put the cable output to almost zero,

It depends on the type of cable you have installed, the part number is printed on the cable sheath.

once you know the wattage output on your pipe, its easy to back calc I, and R