Techniques, systems and articles are described for preparing electrical cables for connections to a power grid. In one example, a system includes a rotatable tool head having a plurality of rollers, a cutting tool, a signal reflection target coupled to the at least one cutting tool, a transceiver configured to transmit a signal toward the reflection target and detect a reflected signal from the reflection target; and at least one computing device configured to cause the transceiver to transmit the signal toward the reflection target and determine, based on the reflected signal, a current relative position of the cutting tool.