ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Lo-Tech Puller....

... "Sleeving" in this sense is not an option in my book...for two reasons..it's a Code violation,and also because PVC glue will adhere to the conductors and may compromise the insulation,..not only that,if for some "Gawd forsaken" reason you need to extract one or more of the conductors,you'd be unable to do so because the glue will have adhered to the wires and side-wall of pipe making extraction impossible..(although this example pertains more appropriately to smaller conductors run thru pipe)...
Russ

Rat,

"Sleeving" in this sense is not an option in my book..."

Funny story about that, we hired a guy that came to us with good recommendations, the first day on the job, i get a call from the app working with him, you better get over here now, don't wait until noon, When i get there, he is sleeving the pipe over the cable, as it turned out he never had any formal trainning at all, just one of those guys that worked for a lot of different EC's, and picked up a few very bad habits, considering he was working harder then he had to , and had a family to support, i gave him a choice go back to school, and stay with us, or pay for last day, he went back to school and a year later left us to move on to a better paying position.

[This message has been edited by LK (edited 11-18-2005).]

...Renosteinke, that is sooo cool!! how did it work for you?? I really like the design..I copied the photo to show my guy's Grand-dad...He's gonna be sooo mad!!

... LK, great story,man,... I can relate


Oh,..by the way,..passed my service/trench inspection today with flying colors..I'm quite proud... it's my first underground 300 amp. service... I'm glad thats over with!! HATS AND HORNS!!
Russ

[This message has been edited by Attic Rat (edited 11-19-2005).]

Attic Rat, the frame works fine. The only drawback is that, with my truck pulling a lot harder than I can, it will easily pull up pipe that is buried under only a few inches of dirt! You really MUST have the pipe 2 ft down.

John,

I just went to look at a job this morning, may just may need a rig like yours, the power is from the truck is that correct?

Correct- I just attach the rope to the frame of the truck...and drive ever so slowly! You really do need to have a 'feeder' and a 'spotter' for this job- and communicatio between them!

An VERY important safety note...NEVER simply loop the rope around a hitching ball. Those things can- and often do- shear, resulting in a hardened steel ball flying at someone's head like a bullet. There are regular fatalities from this practice.

Safer to hook up a horse to it.

A safer method of powering this from the truck would be welding a winch to the frame, and powering that from a pair of jumper cables IMO.

The idea behind these improvised things is to have a "quick and dirty" device to help you pull wire....especially long, heavy runs, or where the position is awkward.

I will be the first to admit that my frame is of very, limited use, and for that reason doesn't get used very often.

Sure, you could try to rig a "Hole Hawg" to a gearbox and brace it against the pipe itself...but Maxis does just that....it costs about $400...and you need a power source for the motor.

You could get a truck with a winch....but those cost $$$$, and you're still limited to places where your truck will go.

Or- maybe get a battery, motor, and mount it on some sort of frame, with a pulley you can position to pull in different directions? Express Technology ( www.dcwireexpress.com ) has such a rig...I'm afraid of how much it costs.


The old standby, Greenlee, has a couple of wonderful pullers - which are probably over-kill for most pulls - but at a cost in the thousands of dollars.

I think it was General Patton who said "Don't let a perfect plan become the enemy of a good plan....a good plan executed today beats a perfect plan that won't be ready until tomorrow!"

I must confess that is one of the things I really like about electric work....in a variety of jobs, I have never before been among such a bunch of creative, inventive folks. An amazing number of our parts, methods, and tools came from the trade- and not some pencil-neck geek sitting at a drafting table!