rCABLING & CABLE MANAGEMENT
ENGINEERING CHANGE IN THE CABLE MANAGEMENT MARKET
It wasn’t long ago that cable management solutions, and in particular cable cleats, were very much the sole domain of standard products, meaning what manufacturers had in their catalogues was pretty much all that could be specified. Times though have changed, and according to Ellis Patents’ managing director, Danny Macfarlane, standard product ranges now form the backbone of a far more flexible product offering
M
acfarlane states, “When I first joined Ellis Patents in 2003 we very much had standard product ranges, which specifiers selected from according to their project requirements. We still have these ranges today, and the likes of our Emperor and Vulcan+ cable cleats remain our bestsellers, but alongside them we have a slew of new, innovative products that have been developed as a result of a major shift in the way the market operates.
“In the last couple of years alone we’ve designed, developed and manufactured a completely new product for a major Siemens offshore wind project; solved installation headaches with bespoke solutions for Balfour Beatty; and consigned a major health and safety issue for National Rail to history with a product that went on to win a host of innovation awards. “The Siemens job was the first of these projects, with them coming to us with a need for a new product during a live project situation. The challenge was to develop a way of feeding, and then restraining, seven 117mm diameter cables along a specified route within a fabricated structure that featured a significant number of twists and turns. “The Cable Guide Clamp we designed, developed and manufactured in response not only solved Siemen’s problem, it also secured an order we wouldn’t have won had we been relying solely on our standard product offering. And we didn’t stop with that one project, the Cable Guide Clamp has been developed into a full range that regularly secures us orders from around the world. “Our ability to deliver these solutions is something we’re immensely proud of, but it’s the fact we were asked to help that signalled the change in the market. Siemens didn’t come to us with its complex installation issue because they saw us as solely a manufacturer of standard products. They approached us because of our expertise. And it’s this engineering expertise that is playing an ever more important role in the cable management market – in particular amongst those manufacturing cable cleats. “Projects are often far from straightforward and
installation and maintenance issues regularly arise, so having the people and the in-house technology to be able to solve problems; firstly on paper and then with an adapted or wholly
S6 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • SUPPLEMENT • FEBRUARY 2021
bespoke product; is now as important as that strong standard product range.”
Cable Guide Clamps, which were designed and developed by Ellis Patents in response to a Siemens installation issue during the construction of the Amrumbank West offshore wind farm in the North Sea, have been installed in what has been described as the biggest infrastructure project in a generation in Norway.
The Sotra Connection is a new national road (N555) being built by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration between Bergen and Øygarden municipality in the country’s Vestland region. The project includes the construction of a new road bridge, the demolition of nine high voltage power masts and the re-routing of the related power cables through a series of tunnels and underneath the current Sotra Bridge – an element of the project known as the Stømkabel Sotrasambandet. Ellis Patents’ innovative two-in-one Cable Guide Clamps have been installed to guide, secure and provide short-circuit protection to 4.5km of high voltage power cables in the Stømkabel Sotrasambandet element of the project. The specification was secured through its Norwegian distributor, Procab. Ellis Patents’ Cable Guide Clamp works in two stages. Firstly, electrical power cables are guided by it into their final location; with trumpeted entry and exit points ensuring the cable is not damaged when fed through particularly sharp angled turns. Once the cable is laid correctly, the top half of the guide is removed, a fixing piece installed directly onto the cable and the top half re-secured, thus turning it into a fully-functioning HV cable clamp.
ELLIS PATENTS 01944 758 395 |
ellispatents.co.uk
electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk
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