Last week, it was noticed a cable (D1000223 s/n S11004078, 216") for the TMS-EY Beam Diverter was BAD.  This cable was installed in 2012 & it was noted to have possible issues at that time, so we wanted to address the cable next time we had a chance.  This cable was used at a time when we didn't have our current clean/bake procedure.  I've heard this might have been a cable which was baked longer or hotter than what we now consider acceptable. 

Since this 25-wire cable is only for (1) Beam Diverter (uses 6-wires), we wanted to salvage this cable by switching other unused wires in the cable with the bad one.  The bad/shorted wire was #23; it's paired with #11.  We swapped this twisted pair with #22 & #10.  Unfortunately, this didn't work.  Hi-Pot test showed we had a new wire which was shorted to the Shield.  Since we had four more Twisted Pairs to work with, we tried it again....and again!  Sadly we kept on getting shorts with the wires.

When inspecting the wire closely, we observed tears/scuff marks on the individual wires, and exposed wire (see attached photos).  Alot of this damage was near the connector (well that's all we had exposed) but the thought is when working on the connector, one slides the connector up and down the wires.  This is probably causing the damage to the wires.  These wires are thicker than the 22awg wire.  And because of this only 17 wires fit in this connector----but it's a tight fit.  In 2012, a bad cable was inspected and found to have similar damage.  So the connector is abrading the insulation on the wires, and/or the over-heating weakened the wire insulation.

At this point, we stopped, and will now go with using a different cable (D1000225 s/n S1106887, 209").  This cable is different in that it is 28awg (vs D1000223's 22awg).  Although not optimal, it has been approved to use this cable by Rich A/Richard M.