Can the Brotek Ripper be used efficiently to dig trench for low voltage wire?

SCRich · May 1, 2008

We are not doing the power for the gate per-se but mostly for the wife. She likes Christmas lights and the first thing she said when we looked at the property and it's 550ft of fence and road frontage is "I can hang a lot of lights off of that"!!

If she is going to be running that many lights I'll need some juce so I'll just run 240v and break it down. That way I can have power for other things like a video camera, gate lights and who knows maybe in the future a flag pole with a big flood light.

Power is a good thing when you need it. May as well make it 240 so if I ever want to branch off to another area of the land I am not stuck with a wimpy 120v line. Also trying to run 120v 350+ feet can be done but you would need some large gauge wire to keep it up in the 115-120v range, run 240v and you can back down on the gauge a bit which means cheaper. 350 feet would only take me to the fence from the house, then I would have had several hundred more feet along the fence, 120v would not have cut it the whole way. I got another 700ft run to get to my food plot/future garden, still trying to figure out if I am going to pay $15 a month for a whole new meter or feed it from the house. It would take me about 10 years to pay off the materials at $15 a month if I feed from the house.

montelatici · May 1, 2008

I see, I only need power for the gate.

Jabroni · May 2, 2008

I have the old style Brotek ripper tooth; without the trenching attachment. I've used it for making a deep slice in my lawn to run length of coax from my ground mounted DirecTV dish to my house. It's ideal for running 12V wiring for landscape lights, etc.

ELMO67 · May 2, 2008

Another interesting thread for me! My situation is the burial of 1300ft. of cable for the cable company. I wonder if there is signal loss with that cable and if any extra protection would be necessary?

montelatici · May 2, 2008

If the cable company gave you a contract for coax cable laying, they would provide an appropriate line amplifier at the interface they intend to connect the coax to.

montelatici · May 4, 2008

Whoever suggested the TSC subsoiler, many thanks. The thing works great with the single tooth. As I was digging the trench with it, it also pulled up roots from vines at the edge of my property therefore it may also help in stump removal along with the BX-24's backhoe. The plow part is off, but it looks like the right implement for potatoes with the plow part on.

SCRich · May 4, 2008

ELMO67 said:
Another interesting thread for me! My situation is the burial of 1300ft. of cable for the cable company. I wonder if there is signal loss with that cable and if any extra protection would be necessary?

I am surprised that they expect you to lay the cable. Around here and in NJ and Florida the cable company is responsible for EVERYTHING up to the house and including the NI side of the grounding block they attach to your house. NI stands for the Network Interface and the other side is CPE Customer Premise Equipment, hold overs from the telephone bizz. From the CPE side into your house is your responsibility unless you pay for a service contract and unless you pay or work a deal for free installation.

1300ft is a LOT I would expect that they will be giving you amplification right at the pedistal or on the pole. You normally amplify before the run and IF NEEDED after the run (in your house). When you amplify only at the house you will also be bumping up the noise. When you have a strong signal and bump it up even more then you got something to work with and it will be a better quality signal.

Same goes for the phone company with new service. In my case they loved me for not having to trench 350ft, I put pipe in for my power and communications runs to the road. Only reason I did it was because I knew I would be pouring a concrete pad/driveway around the house where the services would come in. I did not want direct burrial then having to tear up the pad if something went wrong a few years down the road. The house and pad were built long before I called the phone company and we still do not have cable service offered yet. I am 1K feet away from where they say they stop!! Not even a bribe of $2,000 to install the necessary equipment to make it reach worked, not enough customers yet maybe someday they said.

I call quarterly and request service, maybe some day they will give up and just do it.

ELMO67 · May 5, 2008

Well the situation I have is a 1300 ft. driveway with underground power and phone lines both installed in their own respective conduits. I did the conduit installation back in 1992 and the area cable company at the time estimated it would cost me around $1500.00 to do- I had to install the conduit, ( of course), and they would charge me for the cable if it was over (I think) 200ft. Being the smart person I thought I was, I said " No thanks, I'll get a satellite dish". This was all before the internet was a really big deal ( to me) so it seemed like a good way to go. In our area cable internet seems to be the way to go in terms of speed and service now and it also gives me the ability to watch TV! So what options does that leave me with now? I don't even know at this point if the cable company will let me bury the line.

SCRich · May 5, 2008

We are going off topic now but I feel for you! Consider yourself lucky you did the phone and power in 92' at 92' copper prices!! That stuff is more expensive than the cable, at that type of distance request someting along the lines of RG-11 cable, not the RG-6 Quad Shield or anything like that, way too much loss.

I have a dish now but am dieing for a cable modem. I had one at the rental house while we were building now. I work for a wireless phone company and I purchased a EVDO modem for the house internet but I still pay monthly and our signal here in the pine tree farm is very poor, but it's better than dial up.
The dish stinks also, 80ft+ pine trees all over the place and the only clearing to the south is about 700ft away through rock. Every time it rains and get's windy we just shut off the TV. The limbs get soaked and dense then blow in and out of the signal path. Once it dries up in a day or so the signal comes back.

swampvol · May 5, 2008

1300ft? Thats way too far for rg-11. At that distance they would probably have to extend their plant.

The internet is a lot more sensitive to signal loss than tv.