Thread: Burnt Cable!
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Old 13-11-2009, 13:26   #6
sollp
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Re: Burnt Cable!
Quote:
Originally Posted by speedymove View Post
Okay, where do I start? I live in the Southampton area and 2 evenings ago we suddenly noticed a drop in the voltage coming into our house, lights were dim, microwave not working etc.. The same was true for the neighbourhood. Of course this also affected my V+ box downstairs and also the other box virgin box upstairs. I was seeing the usual AP52 code on the V+ box which means no signal coming in.

Anyway, I phoned virgin support and they said there was a problem in the area and it will be sorted the next day. I also phoned the scottish and southern electric about the problem with power and they also said it would be fixed the next day.

The next morning the voltage was surging up and down between 190 volts and 230 volts and we smelt an awful burning smell coming from the bedroom where the upstairs box was. At the time I couldn't trace the source of the burning smell but needless to say I switched all the power off and called the emergency number.

To cut a long story short, the power was eventually fixed in the early hours of the next morning but the V+ box was still not working. I called virgin support again about an hour ago and they said it should all be working and an engineer is on his way to look at my setup. Anyway, in readiness for the visit of the engineer I looked again at the virgin box upstairs and to my utter horror I noticed that the coax cable going into this box had most of its insulation burnt and charred! Obviously now I know where the burning smell came from.

This has left me extremely concerned about the safety of the cable installation as a whole. What if I hadn't been here to switch of the power? We could have been asleep and it could have happened then. I am certainly going to get rid of the box upstairs as a result and I wonder now how I can make more people aware of this potential danger.

I would welcome any advice about this as I am really concerned about the safety of these Virgin cable boxes and where I go from here.
I suspect that the commercial power cable in the footpath has become faulty through either damage to it by third party OR a joint has become wet and blown. Unfortunately what can happen is that the commercial power cable is situated right next to the Virginmedia ductwork, when there is a fault this can explode,burn ect if the ductwork is next to it it can result in damage to the ductwork and cabling within it.

Now this part i'm guessing in your situation, it could be a possibilty that this has happened and the drop cables within the ducting have come into contact with the live commercial power cable?????

As already stated i'm guessing this part so DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY ASSUME THIS HAS BEEN YOUR SITUATION WITHOUT FIRST CHECKING with Virginmedia or the local energy provider in your area.

OR there might have been a fault with the Virginmedia STB as a result of the fluctuating power levels, and somehow it's done the damage???

Again this is just a guess based on YOUR info given.

You should have isolators fitted on your installation to give SOME protection from power surges either way. Do you have these fitted??
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