scope:

This guide serves two primary purposes. The first is to outline many of the issues associated with using a solvent as an electric cable cleaner. The second is to provide a variety of tests that can be used for evaluating the performance of solvents intended for cleaning electric cables or cable accessories used by electric utilities.

Tests for assessing the compatibility of a cleaning solvent with various cable and cable accessory components and tests for assessing cleaning effectiveness are included within this guide. Although many materials are used in cable systems, this guide covers only the basic cable and cable accessory components with a focus on electric power cables. The guide may be applied to materials outside the scope of this document at the user's discretion.

The compatibility tests include suggested or target acceptance criteria to help assure that the solvent does not harm the component it is intended to clean. As this document is a guide, these values are not requirements. They are only provided as guidelines and are based either on industry standard requirements for materials or on the best judgment and experience of the working group members who prepared the document. They will be modified by the P1493 Working Group as additional data become available. The clean20 ing effectiveness tests are comparative tests with no specific performance requirements.

Throughout this guide, the terms "solvent" and "cleaner" are both used to describe the chemical intended for use as a cable cleaner.

Purpose

There is currently no defined independent guide or standard for evaluating chemicals used to clean electrical cables and accessories. This protocol will provide the test methods and acceptance criteria for the critical properties which determine the acceptability of a chemical for use to clean sensitive electrical cables and accessories.