Serious question.
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Pro tip: you can use the plastic tabs from bread bags as little wire tags
Additional Pro Tip: Colored Zip Ties
Good tip though 👍
Zip ties are too small to write on.
Liebherr have little tags you print on that are secured in a plastic sleeve be a zip tie for cable identification
I do lighting design in small theaters & have a fair amount of my own gear. I have a ton of 3-pin, 4-pin, and 5-pin XLR cables, and also some adapters that convert between 3&5 pin. I use colored zip ties on the ends of each cable to not only tell me what type of cable it is but to distinguish my cables from the theaters cables.
Sometimes writing isn’t necessary, just gotta distinguish between two different wire harnesses.
Coloured electrical tape works. Make little flags.
Fluke makes a bunch of tone generators and circuit finders that you can use to figure out which line you need to work on. I assume linesmen have something similar for their more robust needs.
Power linemen have phasing sticks to determine which phase is which.
Datacom wires are, to start, much lower on the pole than power cables, and have markings on the cable jacket to determine what the cable actually is (fiber, coax, tel, etc). Beyond that, there is usually some tagging at each service point.
By taste.
Fun fact: A skilled linesman can use their tongue to tell the difference between 9V DC and 115kV AC.
The more you know*
You can tell it’s 14.4kV by the linemans muscle spasms and sudden loss of consciousness. If he bursts into flames or is immediately vaporized, that’s the 115kV.
Although, the way you can tell if the lineman really knows what he’s doing is if he gets someone from the right-of-way crew to do the tongue test for him.
A great tip for those who need a little cooling off after the end of a hot day; who would have thought to include AC with power lines! What will they think of next?
115kV AC.
well, they can, once…
If you piss on it and smoke comes out, the line is live, obviously.
Does the smoke come out of your dick, or do you not know how conductivity works?
Yes, the line is live, but the test unit only functions once…
Disclaimer: I’ve never used my test probe in such a way.
Didn’t the Mythbusters do the peeing on the third rail thing? Seems similar enough.
If you think this is bad you should visit Mexico City. I don’t know who has the worst wiring in the world, but it’s like your photo, except 10x more tangled and everywhere you look you will find wires literally dangling in front of you while you walk down a street or cross walk. Who knows which ones are live.
I love weird style transformers.
More than meets the eye?
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