Need Help w/Conduit & Pulling Cable

[ruffdog]

Put a small piece or rag on the end of a good nylon string and stick your vacuum cleaner at the other end it will pull it through in 1/2 a sec. flat. then you can pull your wire threw with the string. Soap or grease your wire.

I have used a air compressor to blow it from the other end too. Like you said, it doesn't take long. If you use the AC method, don't just let the string feed as fast as it wants because it will ball up inside. You have to regulate the speed slightly.

 

[kcflhrc]

If you used a 90 degree LB you aren't going to pull anything around that and probably damage what's there. Is this what you used?

 

[RedNeckGeek]

If you used a 90 degree LB you aren't going to pull anything around that and probably damage what's there. Is this what you used?

That's what I wanted to use, and that's what I should have used, but I didn't have a pair of 'em on hand so that's not what I used. :banghead:

They're on the shopping list for Thursday, though.

 

[BleedingOrange]

Why not replace your square 90 degree elbows with sweepers while you,re in there, just in case you ever want to put anything else in that same pipe, along with a pull line ?

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Why not replace your square 90 degree elbows with sweepers while you,re in there, just in case you ever want to put anything else in that same pipe, along with a pull line ?

Good idea. That shopping list is getting longer. :laughing:

In the mean time I've come up with a work around. I had a set of ethernet over powerline adapters, and installed one in the pump house and the other in the garage next to a WiFi network extender. The powerline connection isn't a good one, but it does pass enough data to service the two IP cameras attached to the pump house. An ethernet cable connects the powerline adapter to the network extender, and from there the signal makes it into the WiFi network and to the laptop monitoring the cameras. Had to turn the frame rate way down (1 frame/sec) on both cameras to keep from saturating the powerline connectors, but it's better than nothing and does show that all the pieces work. Probably get to digging over the weekend.

 

[MossRoad]

I was always told that you can't use more than 360 degrees of bends before you can't pull a wire through a conduit. I've found that 270 gets tough. If you have four 90's, that's 360. Doesn't matter if you add sweeps or not, its not going to be easy to pull if the total degrees of bends gets over 270 and near 360. Better to add a box every 270 degrees and use these types of fittings on the ends going into and out of buildings.

 

[MossRoad]

All good advice. I have pulled a few thousands of cables into conduits, many with wire already in them. Each situation is different. Nothing beats a nice empty conduit with a nice sturdy pull wire in it already.

At my employer, I've pulled in literally hundreds of miles of wire over the past 30 years. Old machines. Old building. New wiring. New controls. Greasy, grimy old conduits. Nice new ones. Ceilings, plenums, attics, basements.... re-purposed sewer pipes... heck we even had those old pneumatic mail tubes that we re-used between floors.... :laughing: