There is a time and place for conduit, especially in high-demand industrial applications and outdoor installations in which cable trays just don’t offer the protection necessary to safeguard electrical infrastructure.
But, even so, there are many distinct and important advantages that cable trays have over conduit. Here are five of the biggest of them.
Better Heat Dissipation
In some situations, electrical cables will produce a lot of heat. Inside of a conduit, that gets trapped. In extreme cases it can prevent a fire risk; under other circumstances, it will just create unfavorable operating conditions for the electrical cables and can slow down network performance, communications, or even cripple other systems. No matter how you slice it, cable trays offer far better heat dissipation than conduit.
Easier Inspection
It’s all but impossible to inspect cable that’s been drawn through a conduit without pulling it out, or cutting through the conduit. Both options are expensive and time-consuming. With a tray cable, you can just go to the point of interest and take a look. Everything will be right there out in the open for you, and easy to see.
Easier Access
When you need to remove old wire or tray cable and install new ones, getting to that point is a lot easier with cable tray infrastructure. Everything is open so once again, it’s easy to access, inspect, remove, repair, or replace cable, connections or other electrical components when they are laid in a tray rather than drawn through a conduit.
Less Time Consuming to Lay Cable
It is expensive, labor-intensive, and time consuming to draw cable through a conduit, but it takes only a small fraction of the time, effort and expense to lay tray cable in a tray. The infrastructure is also more modular, so you can add and remove cable as needed, much more economically, with a cable tray than you can with conduit.
Tray Infrastructure Is More Modular
The infrastructure associated with cable trays is infinitely more flexible than that associated with conduits, not just the trays themselves, but the tray cable used in them. With tray cable, you can change what’s in the tray as needed, or upgrade cable to faster, higher-performing options as needed without making huge changes to anything else. Also, since access, inspection and removal and replacement are facilitated, trays as an option are much more economical as well.
Where to Get High-Quality Tray Cable
In the market for a new supplier of electrical wire and cable? Need one that offers high-quality options in tray cable? Make that electrical wire supplier EWCS Wire. They carry an exhaustive collection of electrical wire and cable, and among their inventory are many specialty options. In addition to tray cable, they also carry pump cable, DLO cable, aluminum cable, welding cable, solar panel cable, marine grade wire, and much more. Visit their website for more information and if you have any questions about the specifications of any of the electrical wire they sell, get in touch with them.
