Cable designer
The designer builds a cable from the conductor out. Choose the voltage, the cores and the conductor, then the insulation, screen, armour and sheath: it gives each layer's thickness and diameter and the outer diameter of the cable.
Open the cable designer · Cable dimensions
What the designer does
- Conductors follow IEC 60228; insulation, bedding, armour and sheath follow IEC 60502-1 for low voltage and IEC 60502-2 for medium voltage up to 18/30 kV. Every thickness in the table names the table or clause it comes from.
- It writes the cable's DIN VDE 0276 designation letter by letter (NA2XS(F)2Y, N2XSEYRY, NYY) and hands it to the decoder, which reads it back. When the letters cannot say something about the design, the designer says so.
- The cable is drawn in 3D and as a to-scale cross-section. The section downloads as SVG or DXF, the 3D model as GLB, and the design as XLSX, CSV, JSON or XML.
- Current ratings come from IEC 60502-2 Annex B for medium voltage, from HD 603 and IEC 60364-5-52 for low voltage and from BS 7671 Appendix 4 for British armoured cables; the permissible short-circuit current follows IEC 60949.
- A design can follow a national table instead of IEC 60502: HD 603 (NYY, N2XY), the British BS 5467, BS 6724, BS 7846 and BS 6622, EN 50618 for solar cable, HD 627 for control cable and IEC 60840 for high voltage.
- The 300/500 V and 450/750 V wires, cords and installation cables are built to their own standard, not to IEC 60502: H07V-K, H07V-U and NYA to EN 50525-2-31, H07Z1-K to EN 50525-3-31, H05VV-F and the Turkish TTR to EN 50525-2-11, H07RN-F to EN 50525-2-21, the flat lift cables H05V3V3H6-F and H07VVH6-F to EN 50214, NYM and NHXMH to DIN VDE 0250. Each is drawn at its own voltage with the wall thicknesses of its table.
- Flat twin and earth building cables are drawn flat, the protective conductor between the cores and the sheath round them: the British 6242Y, 6243Y and 6241Y to BS 6004 and their low smoke 6242B to BS 7211, the Australian TPS to AS/NZS 5000.2 with its green-and-yellow earth core, and the South African FTE to SANS 1507-2. RG-58 and RG-59 coaxial cables are built as their makers build them: the centre conductor, the polyethylene dielectric, the braid and the jacket.
- Optical fibre cables are built as their makers build them, at the fibre count typed: the Chinese GYTA, GYTS and GYXTW, the all-dielectric ADSS aerial cable and the German A-DQ(ZN)B2Y and A/I-DQ(ZN)BH. The loose tubes with their coloured fibres, the filler rods, the central member, the tapes, yarns, steel wires and sheath are drawn to the makers' published dimensions; a fibre cable has no current rating and no voltage.
- The medium voltage cables of HD 620 are built to their own national part: the Dutch 10-J, the Swedish 10-M, the Danish 10-D, the German 10-C and the Norwegian 10-K. Each design is compared, layer by layer, with the equivalent cable of the other countries and named as each country writes it.
- North American cables are built by their type in AWG and kcmil: THHN / THWN-2, XHHW-2, USE-2 / RHW-2, THW-2, TW, T90 Nylon, RW90 / RWU90, PV wire, NM-B, UF-B, NMD90, SER, SEU, Type MC, Type AC, AC90 / ACWU90, TECK90, MC-HL, SJT, SJTW, SJOOW, ST, SO, SOOW, MV-105 and URD. The NEC types get their NEC 310.15 ampacity and Chapter 9 voltage drop, the medium voltage ones NEC 310.60. Wall thicknesses are the values makers publish, checked against maker datasheets.
- Armour can be round or flat steel wires, with the counter-helix steel tape of NYFGbY and NA2XSEYRGY, or two armours over a separation sheath, as in N2XRHBH. Control and data cables with or without a braid (LiYY, LiYCY, LiYCY (TP), Li2YCY, LiHCH) and the DIN VDE 0815 installation cable J-Y(St)Y are built as their makers build them, with the braid, the static screen and its drain wire drawn, from 0.14 mm².
- You can also describe the cable in a sentence or type its designation ("11 kV 3 core 185 Cu XLPE SWA PVC to BS 6622", "N2XSEYRGY 3x95/16 8,7/15 kV"): the designer builds it and lists what it read and what it assumed.
- A check lists where the design departs from a rule set (IEC 60502, HD 603, HD 620 or BS), with the required and the found value.
The values are nominal, computed by each standard's rules: compare them with the maker's datasheet before you specify or order a cable.
Calculations
Beside the construction the designer works out what the cable is chosen and laid by, each value with its standard or source. Every link opens the designer at that panel.
- Voltage drop and reverse sizing: Volts and per cent for a load, a length and a power factor by IEC 60364-5-52:2009 Annex G against its Table G.52.1 limits, and the smallest section that carries a load with every factor named; NEC Chapter 9 Table 9 for North American wires.
- Grouping and harmonics: Low voltage grouping factors by IEC 60364-5-52:2009 Tables B.52.17 to B.52.21 and BS 7671 Tables 4C1 to 4C3, and the third-harmonic factor of 4- and 5-core cables by Table E.52.1.
- Armour and protective conductor check: Is the armour or the protective conductor enough for the fault current and time: the adiabatic check with k by IEC 60364-5-54:2011 Annex A and BS 7671 Tables 54.2 to 54.4.
- Burial depth by country: The minimum cover for the voltage and the location, by each country's rule (NEC 2026 Tables 300.7(A) and 305.15(A) in the US, IS 1255 in India and the national rules the research read), used as the depth of the ratings.
- Laying in cold weather: The lowest laying temperature of the design by its standard's section or its sheath compound (HD 603, HD 620 and the makers), with the pre-warming rule.
- Test after installation: The tests for the cable's own voltage with the voltages worked out: IEC 60502-2 clause 20, IEC 60840, the HD 620 country variants and BS, IEEE 400.2 VLF for North American cables.
- Pull calculation: A route of straights, bends and slopes: whether the pull passes and where its worst point is, by the Southwire installation guide's method. The tensions, the step table and the PDF come with Pro.
- NEC conduit fill and the grounding conductor: Conduit fill by NEC 2026 Chapter 9 Tables 1, 4, 5 and 5A, and the equipment grounding conductor by Table 250.122, upsized with the phase conductors, for North American designs.
- NEC cable tray fill: Whether the cables fit one tray by NEC 2026 392.22, for North American designs. The areas, the ampacity by 392.80 and the PDF come with Pro.
Project requirements and the specification
The requirements panel adds what a tender asks for on top of the base standard (rodent and termite protection, UV, cold, oil, watertightness, fire, armour) with every construction that meets each one, its tests and sources. From the design and its requirements the designer writes the specification in tender order and the required / offered schedule, its REQUIRED column filled with the design's own numbers. Cable specification builder
The designer box: loose wording and voice
Type or say the cable as a tender or a message words it. The rules read sizes, voltages, materials, standards, type names and requirement words such as "rodent protected" or "UV resistant", free and without limit, and voice input fills the box from the microphone. Where the rules leave words unread, the page names them, and Pro members can have them read by AI: it shows exactly what it would add, and you apply it or not.
STEP and the branded PDF datasheet (Pro)
With Pro, from $32 a month, the design downloads as a STEP AP214 file, each layer a named solid, for SolidWorks, Inventor, Creo, CATIA or FreeCAD, and as a PDF datasheet in your own brand: your logo and footer, the cross-section and 3D view, the layer table with sources, weight, current rating, drum and the compliance check. Compare plans
Cable families the designer builds
Each link opens the designer with that family selected. Below it are the code pages and dimension pages the site has for the family.
Power cables: IEC and European standards
IEC 60502 (LV: -1, MV: -2)
- NA2XS2Y · NA2XS2Y dimensions
- NA2XS(F)2Y · NA2XS(F)2Y dimensions
- N2XS(FL)2Y · N2XS(FL)2Y dimensions
- NA2XS(FL)H · NA2XS(FL)H dimensions
- NA2XS(FL)2Y · NA2XS(FL)2Y dimensions
- NA2XSY · NA2XSY dimensions
- N2XSY · N2XSY dimensions
- NA2XS(F)Y · NA2XS(F)Y dimensions
- N2XS(F)2Y · N2XS(F)2Y dimensions
- N2XS2Y · N2XS2Y dimensions
- N2XSEYRY · N2XSEYRY dimensions
- N2XSEH · N2XSEH dimensions
- N2XSEY · N2XSEY dimensions
- N2XSEHRH · N2XSEHRH dimensions
- NYY · NYY dimensions
- N2XH · N2XH dimensions
- NAYY · NAYY dimensions
- NA2XY · NA2XY dimensions
- N2XY · N2XY dimensions
- NA2XH · NA2XH dimensions
- NA2X2Y · NA2X2Y dimensions
- N2XRHBH
- NA2XSEYRGY
- nyfgby
- N2XBHBH
- N2XFHBH