Quality Series, Part 1: Quality Factors to Consider for Your Next Industrial Wire and Cable Purchase

In keeping the best interests of our customers as Northwire’s highest priority, we’d like to alert you to concerning information made available by David Gallagher and David Fallon on Manufacturing.net reflecting a large number of companies encountering issues when purchasing industrial wire and cable.

Unethical cable manufacturers are lowering manufacturing standards in order to present lower prices to customers; however, their use of inferior materials may lead to issues and higher costs in the long run.

To protect our customers, Northwire suggests watching for the following indicators when looking for a quality cable engineering company to avoid purchasing inferior wire and cable:

• Pay attention to copper prices: Cable manufacturers may replace pure copper with steel or aluminum to reduce the expense of the manufacturing process. Unfortunately, the signal transmission across these inferior wires is questionable at best, and may lead to issues. Be sure to request sample wire and cable before making your next purchase, and inspect the product to ensure that pure copper has been used.


• Examine connector construction: Industrial cable manufacturers may engage in the common practice of re-grinding inferior connectors during the wire and cable manufacturing process. This allows the plastic to be reused to mold new connectors. While this is a legal and practical action, the quality of connectors may suffer from the repeated re-grinding of plastic. Examine all connectors and avoid those that appear foggy or to be constructed of inferior plastic.


• Inspect jacketing material: To cut costs, some wire and cable sellers have begun the practice of reducing the quality of jacketing material. While this may not be an issue in some applications, it is a very large problem in situations requiring wiring with a CMP or CMR flammability certification. Ask for a sample of the jacketing material to ensure that the proper materials have been used during cable manufacturing.

Keep these important points in mind during your next wire and cable purchase, and watch Northwire’s weblog for more additional purchasing tips. Contact Northwire for products and service that reflect the highest quality and integrity when purchasing industrial cable, mil spec wire and cable, medical wire, marine grade wire, stock or custom cables.