AS Schwabe: Metal Cable Reels for Robust Industrial Applications
The family-owned company as - Schwabe has been a German manufacturer of technical products on the market for 35 years. At the heart of the business are cable reels, power distributors and connectors for all the requirements on construction sites - this applies equally to 230 volts and 400 volts. In the 400 volt range, the company has everything from 32 amps to 125 amps in its program.
Metal cable reel with special insulation
Marcus Heinzmann (Sales Manager at as-Schwabe): We are talking here about the IronCoat cable reel, which is a metal cable reel. For 3 years now, metal cable reels have only been allowed on the market with special protective insulation. The operating regulations changed 3 years ago. The German statutory accident insurance, i.e. the umbrella organization of the employers' liability insurance associations, issued a new regulation according to which conventional cable reels may no longer be used in construction.
We said we wanted to continue producing metal cable reels for tradesmen, because the metal cable reel has clear advantages: it is more robust, it is indestructible and it is also cold-resistant. We have a special protective insulation that protects the cable reel from the transmission of electrical voltages to the outside.
Mammut cable reel is a complete power station
The employers' liability insurance association assumes the worst case scenario, i.e. a cable is cut on the construction site during everyday operation and the copper is bare, the drum is wound up and, as luck would have it, the cut comes directly to the outside and then practically transmits the current voltage and you get an electric shock. This is not desirable. Hence this protective insulation. The entire insulation core is also made entirely of plastic, which means that even if any cables should come loose here due to any tensile forces behind the socket, these cables are not bare but have protective insulation and you have exceptional protection here.
The whole thing has been certified by the employers' liability insurance association, it complies with BGI 608, which is the regulation for the operation of cable drums on construction sites. We are talking about the German standard here, which is the highest in Europe and other countries will certainly follow suit in the next few years. This Mammut cable reel is a complete power station, which means you have 40 meters or 30 meters of 5G6 cable with a 32 amp plug. You plug this into a socket in the construction site distribution board and then pull the cable across the construction site accordingly and have your own complete power supply on the construction site. You have various connections. You have 3 Schuko sockets, you have two 16 amp sockets, you have a 32 amp socket and you have complete protection via RCD circuit breakers and can supply yourself completely at your workplace on the construction site. We have our site power distribution box here. We connect the 32 amp socket. Then we fold up the bracket and we can now unwind the cable in the direction of travel.
