Can I see your subsoiler mods please

[HiTechTed]

I need to lay 500 feet of 2-2-2-4 cable. The ground here is very dried out and hard, so I dug a trench with my middle buster but it would not dig down fully...I couldn't get it to pull under to it's full extent. I'm going to try and water the trench down (unless it rains soon) to see if that helps soften things up a bit. I tried every angle with that middle buster and it just didn't pan out.

Anyway, I took the share off of the middle buster and made my own "subsoiler" attachment for it. I was thinking about attaching the cable to that and pulling it through the trench to bury it, but I'm afraid that since it's individual strands and it's a large bundle, it won't work well. I think it would be better to lay the cable in behind the subsoiler. I can come up with a way to hold the cable spool, but I could use some examples of a "guide" for laying the cable.

Any help and ideas are appreciated and if you need pics I can supply them.

 

[bullbreaker]

If you haven't already check out member KennyD project you will find what your looking for:http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/72359-subsoiler-burying-electric-wires-4.html
Start at permalink #32

Boone

 

[HiTechTed]

Thanks for the link to that, it's what I'm thinking BUT my cable is substantially larger than the 10 guage kennyd ran. Guess I could use larger conduit! That ripper shank is an excellent idea...I'll bet that bad boy would dig down even better than my device!

 

[mojoinco]

I bought a potato digger/middle buster blade for my subsoiler, so I went the other way from you (and haven't tried the cable layer idea). Why not make a couple of initial rips, then cut down the middle buster blade to a width appropriate for your cable bunch?

 

[Baby Grand]

As long as you keep the cable attached to the subsoiler & right behind the point/blade, you should do okay. The subsoiler creates a void behind the point - sort of a "mole hole" - that's where you want the cable going as there will be less resistance to pulling and less force trying to separate the cable from the subsoiler. Here's a picture of how I started an underground irrigation tubing run:



I dug a short trench so I could let the tube enter the soil at the depth it would run to avoid kinking it. I used a lot of wire and tape to secure the tubing to the subsoiler. The wire was long, heavy "twist-ems" that came wrapped around a coil of garden hose. The tubing was thin walled, so I made several holes thru it and laced the wire thru the holes and around the mast of the subsoiler, then wrapped it all up good with tape. Worked great.

Good luck and let us know how you make out.

-Jim

 

[HiTechTed]

Well, after pondering the situation for hours now, I think my best possible method would be to just open up a trench, put a pipe through the spool and my 3ph arms and just roll the spool behind the tractor, laying the cable into the trench as I go. I guess I could come back with my landscape rake and fill the trench back in.

The problem with doing a trench is that a lot of the dirt will likely fall back into the trench considering how dry it is, which means I won't get the cable buried as far down as possible.

I think I'm still going to devise something using one of the rippers from my box blade, just to get down into the soil a little more...even if it does fall back into the trench. Man I wish things were easier, but...

UPDATE: It's raining here so that might lessen the challenge a little for me! I think it's too little, too late for some of the corn crops around here, though.