ECN Forum Forums Technical Discussion Electrical Theory and Applications Shorted pilot wire in a 15KV trailing cable.

Anyone familiar with trailing cable? I have a 15KV shielded cable with 3-1/0 phase conductors, 2- bare ground wires, and a #8 pilot wire. I meggered the pilot to ground 0ohms@500V Shorted. I then checked it with a circuit seeker but it showed an open circuit. So it's a insulation problem with the pilot wire. My question is: Can I use a thumper on such a small wire?(I think I know the answer to that) If not what can I do to pin point the fault? Aside from cutting the cable in halves and using the process of elimination. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks.

A testing device called a "time domain reflectometer" could be used to find the distance to a short. It is normally used on coaxial cable to find where cable damage is that changes the characteristic impedance. A short is a (drastic) change in impedance. This isn't the kind of thing electricians would generally have. But if you know any electrical engineers, especially those that work in RF, they may have one you could borrow.

Example products:
http://tinyurl.com/7jle5