In 1995, Marcus Salt of Salt Electrical Ltd started working for himself as a self-employed electrician. After buying a Bedford Rascal van for £1300 along with a few tools and testers he was ready to go, but he soon realised how difficult it was to pull in cables by himself.
As the business began to grow over the past 21 years and take on more employees, Marcus realised that to maximise the time spent carrying out installations on projects it was vital to have his staff working to the best of their ability. However, this can only be done if the employees have the right tools for the job. There is no point employing 12 men to screw up conduit saddles of fixings if you only have six cordless drills or if two men have to share one screw driver.
The same rule applies when it comes to pulling in cables, whether it’s a small domestic installation or a large commercial factory. We have all seen one man pulling in cables while another feeds them in. Another potentially dangerous situation is setting the cables on a brush shaft held up with a few concrete blocks while a few more stop the shaft rolling off; this isn’t particularly secure, especially when you are halfway down a cable run and the whole thing ends up hitting the floor.
The only option available to Marcus was to buy a cable dispenser similar to the foldable ones available online or from a wholesalers. However, these dispensers are designed for several single PVC or T&E cables, not for the single PVC 500m rolls and 500m screen cable reels the firm was using for long cable runs up to 100m. Marcus set about trying to find a solution by designing and manufacturing a reel dispenser which was heavy duty, simple to use, easy to store when not used and very durable. After several attempts he decided to make two sizes of the V frame dispenser Reel Mate and Reel Mate Max.
Reel Mate: Clearance from bottom of frame to centre of pipe approx: 310mm load 50kg
Reel Mate Max: Clearance from bottom of frame to centre of pipe approx: 560mm load 50kg
Both of these products are locally made and galvanise dipped for a durable long working life. The Reel Mate dispensers are capable of carrying cable loads in excess of 50kg. With the flexibility of using 2, 3, or 4 Reel Mate V frames and a longer 1 inch galvanised pipe, multiple cables can be installed without changing rolls. Another option for multiple cable installations would be to set up the Reel Mate Max larger frames behind the smaller Reel Mate frames; this is the method Salt Electrical Ltd uses.
According to Marcus and the team at Salt Electrical, no other product is capable of carrying multiple small to large cable rolls over 50kg that are not bulky, heavy and expensive. With ever- increasing awareness of health and safety at work along with a commitment to good working practices, Reel Mate allows electricians to install cables with a safe, simple and time-saving solution.
For more information telephone, (NI/RoI) 0044 (0)7889 229 939 or e-mail saltelectrical@sky.com
