Electrician - Tools

Tools

The electrician's trade requires use of a range of hand and power tools and instruments. Usually an electrician will have a personal set of hand tools and general-purpose test instruments, with the more costly power tools or instruments provided by the employer or business.

Some of the more common tools are:

  • Pipe and tube bender
  • voltage indicators
  • Lineman's pliers: Heavy-duty pliers for general use in cutting, bending, crimping and pulling wire.
  • Diagonal pliers (also known as side cutters or Dikes): Pliers consisting of cutting blades for use on smaller gauge wires, but sometimes also used as a gripping tool for removal of nails and staples.
  • Needle-nose pliers: Pliers with a long, tapered gripping nose of various size, with or without cutters, generally smaller and for finer work (including very small tools used in electronics wiring).
  • Wire strippers: Plier-like tool available in many sizes and designs featuring special blades to cut and strip wire insulation while leaving the conductor wire intact and without nicks. Some wire strippers include cable strippers among their multiple functions, for removing the outer cable jacket.
  • Cable cutters: Highly leveraged pliers for cutting larger cable.
  • Rotosplit: A brand-name tool designed to assist in breaking the spiral jacket of metallic-jacketed cable (MC cable).
  • Multimeter: A battery-powered instrument for electrical testing and troubleshooting; common features include the ability to measure and display voltage, resistance, and current with other types of measurements included depending on the make and model. Are available in digital or analogue.
  • Step-bit: A metal-cutting drill bit with stepped-diameter cutting edges, generally at 1/8-inch intervals, for conveniently drilling holes to specification in stamped/rolled metal up to about 1/16" thick; for example, to create custom knock-outs in a breaker panel or junction box.
  • Cord, rope or fish tape. Used to 'fish' cables and wires into and out of cavities. The fishing tool is pushed, dropped, or shot into the installed raceway, stud-bay or joist-bay of a finished wall or in a floor or ceiling. Then the wire or cable is attached and pulled back.
  • Crimping tools: Used to apply terminals or splices. These may be hand or hydraulic powered. Some hand tools have ratchets to insure proper pressure. Hydraulic units achieve cold welding, even for aluminum "locomotive" cable.
  • Insulation Resistance Tester: Commonly referred to as a Megger. Insulation testers apply several hundred to several thousand volts to cables and equipment to determine the insulation resistance value of the item being tested. Modern insulation resistance testers often have a ohm meter function available and are often included as a function of a multimeter.
  • Knockout punch: For punching holes into sheet metal to run wires or conduit.
  • Other general-use tools with applications in electric power wiring include screwdrivers, hammers, reciprocating saws, drywall saws, metal punches, flashlights, chisels, adjustable slip-joint pliers and drills.
  • Test light
  • Ground Fault Indicator Tester

Read more about this topic:  Electrician

Famous quotes containing the word tools:

    “Machinery is aggressive. The weaver becomes a web, the machinist a machine. If you do not use the tools, they use you. All tools are in one sense edge-tools, and dangerous.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “The study of tools as well as of books should have a place in the public schools. Tools, machinery, and the implements of the farm should be made familiar to every boy, and suitable industrial education should be furnished for every girl.”
    —Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    “At the utmost, the active-minded young man should ask of his teacher only mastery of his tools. The young man himself, the subject of education, is a certain form of energy; the object to be gained is economy of his force; the training is partly the clearing away of obstacles, partly the direct application of effort. Once acquired, the tools and models may be thrown away.”
    —Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)