Best way to pull heavy wire in thin wall

I need to pull 100 feet of service wire...two 2awg...one 4awg neutral...and one 6awg ground wire through 100 feet of 1 1/2 inch thin wall. The heaviest I have ever pulled is 12 awg

What's the best way to pull this through...mostly straight run with a

90 degree up/down of about 8 feet at each end.

I have a number of regular fish lines...but is there a "heavy duty" fish line for this type of work ?

Any other pointers...tips....will be really appreciated !

Thanks, Tim

Reply to
tr
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Don't use the frontend loader! :) (In olden days did support/service of line of online coal analyzers at mines/prep plants. In one new installation they used the large front end loader to pull the high voltage coax. It came and worked (for about a month). When replaced, discovered the friction had been so great had actually melted through the corners of the elbows and sawed them right through!)

Anyway, to your question(s)...

Have you done the capacity calculation? Probably ok, but might be close? Bigger conduit --> easier pull at not much more cost...

Lube, lube, lube, ...

Sweep elbows, not sharp corners. To have any chance of pulling by hand will almost certainly need to have access box at second corner then re-feed rather than pull two corners at once...

Not tried a pull of that distance of that size personally, but suspect it won't be easy...Longest I've had to actually pull myself has been on order of 10-ft or so before getting it underground -- but even that isn't w/o effort w stuff as stiff as 2.

Good luck...

Reply to
dpb

Fish a heavier rope through the wall and use that to pull while you have someone push from the other end. If your opening is really small you may need to do all the wire at once. The first one will be the easiest and it will get increasingly tight as you progress. Good luck.

Reply to
HotRdd

Don't use the frontend loader! :) (In olden days did support/service of line of online coal analyzers at mines/prep plants. In one new installation they used the large front end loader to pull the high voltage coax. It came and worked (for about a month). When replaced, discovered the friction had been so great had actually melted through the corners of the elbows and sawed them right through!)

Anyway, to your question(s)...

Have you done the capacity calculation? Probably ok, but might be close? Bigger conduit --> easier pull at not much more cost...

Lube, lube, lube, ...

Sweep elbows, not sharp corners. To have any chance of pulling by hand will almost certainly need to have access box at second corner then re-feed rather than pull two corners at once...

Not tried a pull of that distance of that size personally, but suspect it won't be easy...Longest I've had to actually pull myself has been on order of 10-ft or so before getting it underground -- but even that isn't w/o effort w stuff as stiff as 2.

Good luck...

Reply to
dpb

Don't use the frontend loader! :) (In olden days did support/service of line of online coal analyzers at mines/prep plants. In one new installation they used the large front end loader to pull the high voltage coax. It came and worked (for about a month). When replaced, discovered the friction had been so great had actually melted through the corners of the elbows and sawed them right through!)

Anyway, to your question(s)...

Have you done the capacity calculation? Probably ok, but might be close? Bigger conduit --> easier pull at not much more cost...

Lube, lube, lube, ...

Sweep elbows, not sharp corners. To have any chance of pulling by hand will almost certainly need to have access box at second corner then re-feed rather than pull two corners at once...

Not tried a pull of that distance of that size personally, but suspect it won't be easy...Longest I've had to actually pull myself has been on order of 10-ft or so before getting it underground -- but even that isn't w/o effort w stuff as stiff as 2.

Good luck...

Reply to
dpb

Tim-

Pushing is as important as pulling, by having someone coordinate pushing with your pulling, you'll eliminate a major source of friction....the wrap around the inner surface of the turns.

There are maximum force levels allowable based on the number & size of the conductors....pulling too hard can damage the conduit or the conductors.

I cannot find my ref for max wire pull forces but my recollection is about 12,000 lbs per square inch of total condcutor area (copper) but the max pull force is limited to about 4000 lbs per conduit

SO a back hoe or front end loader without a way to measure the force would be asking for trouble.

These are SWAGS based on my memeory...so verify them before doing anything

My numbers work out to about 50 lbs per each 12 gage condcutor & about 500 lbs per each 2 gage condcutor

these numbers seem pretty reasonable. :)

I would run the fish tape to fish a rope, secure a rag at the rope / fish tape connection & pre-lube the conduit (heavily) by squirting lube in ahead of the rage. Pull the rage through & attach the wire to the rope. Use the rope to pull the wire and again use lube.

Add lube to the conduit after every 10 to 15 feet of pulling. Keep the conductors clean so you don't introduce dirt to the system.

A guy pulling, a guy pushing & someone to squirt lube as you go would be ideal.

The lube can be messy but it's worth it!

If you want to get techincal checkout

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you can actually do a pull force calc to get an idea what you'd be dealing with

cheers Bob

Reply to
BobK207

If it's possible, lay out the cables and assemble the conduit over the bundle, piece by piece.

Reply to
Robert Barr

I just did the calc and he could actually use 1.25" at 24.8% fill so

1.5 is plernty. I agree with the push/pull theory and use the pulling lube Get the real thing, not something you have in the garage. You can pre-lub the pipe by squirting lub in and sucking it through with a vaccum
Reply to
gfretwell

Good...2 is probably not quite as large as I'm thinking it is...don't do that that often...

Yeah, I should have mentioned pushing also. Will certainly help on the first bend, not so much on the second if try to do it in a single run...

Reply to
dpb

Good...2 is probably not quite as large as I'm thinking it is...don't do that that often...

Yeah, I should have mentioned pushing also. Will certainly help on the first bend, not so much on the second if try to do it in a single run...

Reply to
dpb

Good...2 is probably not quite as large as I'm thinking it is...don't do that that often...

Yeah, I should have mentioned pushing also. Will certainly help on the first bend, not so much on the second if try to do it in a single run...

Reply to
dpb

Another way to pull the lube through is to create a home made "pig" just put the shop vac on one end and have it suck some small rags through the pipe covered in lube.

Reply to
HotRdd

I vote no to this idea.

Reply to
Terry

Some contractor rental yards rent power and hand crank pullers. Make sure that your conduit is well strapped especially at the ends. If you have a bunch of friends you should have two guys feeding the wire into the pipe. One guy who actually does the pushing and the other guy who pulls up the slack and keeps the conductors straight. You don't want the wires to get twisted. At the pulling end two guys should suffice. The trick is to get the push end coordinated with the pull end Have the pusher yell "Pull" when he is ready and just pull a certain amount at a time. Don't try to pull 100' in one motion. Do it in steps; maybe 2' - 3' at a time. Some pulls will be better than others. The pusher should also be applying lube as the wire goes into the pipe. You should have at least a gallon of lube for this.

Strip the ends of the wire back about a foot. Cut off the outer strands of the #4 and #2 conductors to make them smaller. Use a 1/2" or 5/8" pulling rope with a bowline knot at the end. Pull the rope through the conduit. You can use a shop vac with a Home Depot bag (Or similar) tied to lightweight string to put a pulling string into the pipe. I call this the parachute method. This may not work too well with EMT since it leaks air. Use the pulling string to pull your rope into the pipe. Bend 6" of the stripped wires through the bowline knot. Squeeze them tight and wrap them with steel tie wire in several places. Keep the tie wire as compact as possible and twist the ends of the tie wire to make it tight. Bend the twists away from the direction of the pull. Wrap this up with vinyl electrical tape.

If you don't have a bunch of friends you could probably get away with two people and a come-along. The come-along will need to be secured to something solid at one end in a straight path to the conduit end. Put a slip knot in the rope, have someone feed while you crank the come-along. When the cable is used up, undo the slip knot, pull the cable back out and repeat with a new slip knot.

Don't use a car or truck for pulling wire. You need to be able to feel the pull. If you are pulling with a car and the wire gets jammed you can rip the conduit and whatever it is attached to right off.

Reply to
John Grabowski

Robert Barr wrote: > If it's possible, lay out the cables and assemble the conduit over the > bundle, piece by piece. >

That is a specifically forbidden practice in the US NEC. Attempting to install raceway over the conductors inevitably leads to insulation damage.

Reply to
Tom Horne, Electrician

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