Industrial ยท Switchgear
We buy switchgear and padmount cable.
When a lineup of switchgear is replaced or a padmount transformer is swapped, the cable that fed it comes out in lengths that were cut for the old arrangement and fit nothing on the new one.
Call or text the buying desk954-740-1983
Voltage class15 kV, 25 kV, 35 kV
What we seeFeeder, tails, elbows
Gear typeLive-front or dead-front
Priced onSize, length, shield
Get a buy quote
Send the reel list. A buyer reads it.
Six details are enough to start. Tags and photos can follow by text or email once a buyer has looked at the basics.
- A buyer reviews the lot: construction, footage and condition, not only metal weight
- Copper and aluminium, 600 V building wire through 345 kV cable
- Full reels, partial reels, cut lengths, pallets and truckloads
- No fee, no obligation, and no automatic pickup
Reel list · Switchgear
Reviewed by a buyerTell us what you have and where it sits. Nothing is moved until written lot terms are agreed.
A gear replacement is a planned outage with a hard end time. The old lineup is disconnected, the cable is cut at the lugs and pulled back to the nearest splice or manhole, and the new gear lands on a different footprint with different lug heights. Nothing about that sequence is designed to preserve the cable.
Padmount work is smaller and far more frequent: a transformer swap at a commercial site, a loop feed re-fed, a service relocated for a parking lot. What comes out is short tails, separable connectors and the cable that was pushed back into the conduit. A gear swap leaves the same three things in larger quantity.
01
What a gear swap leaves on the floor
The cable between the gear and the transformer is the bulk of it. It is cut at both ends, so its length is now whatever the run was minus two terminations, and it is usually too short for the new layout and too long to throw away.
The rest of the lot is smaller and easier to miss: control cable from the relay panels, ground braid from the frames, and the short tails inside the lineup that were made up on site.
- Feeder cut at the lugs and pulled back
- Short tails inside the old lineup
- Control and status cable from the relay panels
- Ground braid and bonding jumpers
- Separable connectors left on the cable ends
02
Live-front against dead-front
Live-front gear exposes the studs and the connections. It is older work, common at 5 kV and 15 kV, and the cable is terminated with lugs and tape rather than a moulded elbow. What comes out of it is longer, because the cable had to reach a bare stud.
Dead-front gear uses shielded separable connectors, so the cable ends in a stress cone with an elbow pushed over it. The elbow is rubber goods, not cable, and it comes off before the cable is weighed. Knowing which type the yard had tells a buyer what the terminations on the lot will look like.
03
Tails and terminators are not the same asset
A tail of 15 kV cable twenty feet long has almost no reuse as a run and a great deal of use as a jumper, a test lead or a repair section. It is bought, but it is bought on copper and shield content with a small premium for length.
Terminators, elbows and stress cones should be kept in their own box. They are worth identifying, they are worth something as hardware, and mixing them into a cable heap means they get counted as weight.
- Elbows and inserts, boxed by voltage class
- Stress cones and cold-shrink kits, still sealed
- Lugs and compression connectors, sorted by size
- Cable tails, coiled and labelled with the class
04
Padmount swaps and loop feeds
A padmount transformer sits at the end of a loop feed or a radial feed, and the cable arriving at it is usually URD-style: shielded, with a concentric neutral laid over the core. The neutral is copper, and it is a real part of the metal in the lot.
A swap pulls the elbows, cuts the cable back far enough to re-terminate, and leaves the rest in the conduit. What the seller gets is the cut-back tails and any cable that had to be pulled out to make the new set work.
| Source | Typical cable | What to keep |
|---|---|---|
| Gear replacement | 15 kV feeder, 2 AWG to 750 | Tails labelled by circuit |
| Padmount swap | 15 kV URD, concentric neutral | Elbows boxed separately |
| Live-front lineup | 5 kV and 15 kV, taped ends | Longer cut lengths |
| Relay and control | 600 V control cable | Separate from power cable |
Questions
Answers before you send anything.
If your question is not here, call the desk. A buyer answers, not a call centre.
Do you buy short tails from a gear swap?
Yes, in quantity. A single fifteen-foot tail is a nuisance; a pallet of them from one outage is a load. Coil them, label the voltage class, and keep them off the floor so the jacket does not get cut.
Should the elbows stay on the cable?
No. Take them off and box them, because a connector left on a cable end protects nothing and makes the cable harder to coil and weigh. It is also easier to place when it has not been crushed.
What if the cable was cut in several places to get it out?
Then say how many pieces and roughly how long each one is. Multiple cuts do not destroy the lot, but they change the basis from footage to metal plus short-length premium. Six pieces of forty feet is a better lot than forty pieces of six feet.
Is 35 kV gear work different from 15 kV?
The cable is heavier and the terminations are larger, so the same job produces fewer feet and more accessories. It also tends to be better documented, which helps if the cable is going to be reused.
Keep reading
Related pages
No fee · no obligation
You have the cable. We have a scale and a check.
Send the reel list, the tags or a photograph of the pallet. A buyer comes back with what the lot is worth and how pickup would work, before anything is moved.
954-740-1983 Call or text
- Reel tags, or the print on the jacket
- Reel count and footage, even roughly
- Where it sits and what can reach it
- Whether the cable is still energised