Best wire type to run power to machines?

I had used MC wire for the previous shop(mostly #8), but I don't like how the coiled aluminium armor leaves marks on everything it touches while installing it.

So what's a better alternative? I thought I had seen at another shop what appeared to be MC wire but with a black layer of vinyl(or plastic anyway) on top to make it more water tight(outdoor use rated perhaps) they had long drops from the 20' ceiling, looked to me like it had a spiral inner metal shield.

I've been trying to search for the proper name/# for this stuff online, clicked on every name a few sites sell, but it has yielded nothing yet to looks like what I thought I saw, so maybe I imagined it and it was something else?
What do you guys normally use or what's the best?
I only want to do it once and want it to look decent.

thanks

ACWU 9 and Teck 9



SAF Ω

That does look a lot like it, thank you very much

About how tight can you really bend Teck90 in say a 8/3? from the data I could find it says 12xdia, so with about 1"OD, about a 12"rad/corner at best eh?

Starting to think I'll just have to use EMT and pull THHN, a bit more $ but I guess it is what it is, only doing it once.

A less expensive and more flexible alternative to TEC is Liquid Tight Flexible Metal Conduit. I have most of my machines hooked up this way.

I can see that the cable should be oil resistant, given the use of coolants etc on machine tools. Not all of the liquid tight are oil resistant, but a number are.

. Titan2™ - Type UL


I thought the TECK was, but the datasheet does not show it.

http://www.southwire.com/ProductCatalog/XTEInterfaceServlet?contentKey=prodcatsheet329

I got one more question that I wasn't expecting...

I went with EMT, RW90 wire, more popular than THHN up here, couldn't find THHN actually, anyway... was supposed to get 8-Awg in black, red, blue, green. Now I just noticed while unloading them at home, the Red is actually 6-Awg. (not sure if they were out of 8-Awg red or just a mistake while cutting).

Is that a problem? I'm thinking its fine and I can just run it like that no problem since my biggest load is only about 25amp/leg and for only a short time(screw compressor). I heard before equal wire size and length is important when doing an entrance for a meter. But I can't imagine 6awg will cause any off balance difference or anything ever noticeable next to the 2 other 8awg legs on only a 30' run? the voltage drop seems insignificant with both (0.4V).

STO(W) is a bunch finer and easier to work with while obviating the need for conduit.