Impact Production Services (IPS) has added over 30km of power cabling and 300 distribution units to its growing hire stock. The investment has already proved fruitful, helping support IPS productions onsite, as well as meeting the needs of IPS’ range of trade hire customers.
Over the past few months, IPS has invested in its hire stock and the hardware required for the distribution of temporary power at events. Its close working relationships with suppliers have proved essential while battling sector-specific supply restrictions and varying lead times along with all the other pressures associated with the after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It has been a non-stop few months, but despite all of the obstacles we have faced, we are pleased to now have an expanded and upgraded range of fully tested cabling and power distribution equipment ready to hire,” Joe Martin, who leads the IPS service department, commented.
In total, around £750,000 has been spent on top quality hardware that will provide IPS with “many years of reliable service”, according to Martin. All the new cabling has been made with black H07 cable and fitted with either CEE Form or Power Lock connectors. IPS now has an available hire inventory of more than 80km of mains cabling consisting of both single and three phase options, in 16A, 32A, 63A, 125A, 200A, 400A and 600A variants. The 200A Power Lock range is new for 2022, with sets stocked in lengths of 5m, 10m, 25m and 50m.
All cabling is colour coded and labelled with length and ID details and has been electrically tested and logged on the IPS barcode-based inventory system.
The 300 new and updated power distribution units have been manufactured and supplied by Distro Design and incorporate lots of features to make them “perfect for a hard life” in the events industry. All units have been fitted with recessed tour plate labels and scribble strips to make each unit and circuit quick and neat to label onsite. Smaller distro units are fitted with carrying handles, and larger production units are fitted into wheeled frames for easy handling onsite. This brings the total IPS power distribution stockholding up to nearly 550 units.
“We are proud to have been able to continue our working relationship with IPS, and the high specification of the units supplied is really raising the bar in professional event power distribution,” Distro Design’s Ben Stearn said. “This puts IPS among one of the largest stockists of power available for hire in the UK.”
In keeping with the existing IPS stocks, distribution units follow the same naming conventions. Distro units are fitted with incoming MCB protection, and then depending on the specific configuration RCD protection for the outputs. Larger units are fitted with digital metering, variable RCD protection, power lock and earth terminals.
“We have focussed on consolidating our range and making units compliant with all current regulations, while remaining user friendly onsite,” IPS Managing Director, James Mason said, commenting on the “significant” investment.
“We have vastly increased the stock quantity of the most popular distro units to make larger systems easier to deploy. This is reflected in our stock count, with each model of distro being stocked in quantities from 20 to over 100 units.”
IPS stocks a broad range of power adapters, with converters, splitters, plugboards, as well as 13A, 15A, powerCON, TRUE1, IEC, and Shuko adaptors to name just a few.
IPS also have over 750 sections of cable ramp available for hire, with a range of standard, modular and wheelchair accessible options to choose from to make everything work onsite.
This article originally appeared in issue #269 of TPi, which you can read here.