ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Southwire SIM PULL cable

We just pulled in about 5900' of 500 MCM that had Southwires new SIM PULL insulation. It was marked no lube, but at runs of 470' I wasn't taking any chance not using lube.

Has anyone else used this wire and if so what are your thoughts?

The Southwire rep. says they guarantee their product, but it will take a little getting use to before I give up using wire lube, especially when pulling big wire.

I haven't used the stuff yet, but if the wire was clearly marked "No Lube", wouldn't using lube be a violation of 110-3(b)?

I would want to read the whole package when I intrepreted "no lub", looking for a violation. It might expand to "no lub necessary" in the literature instead of "do not lub".
I would still try it without the lub. Who knows, it might work better. Sometimes you just gotta believe the directions.

I think just because the words "NO LUBE" are printed on the jacket, doesn't mean it's a violation to use lube. If they include literature or a UL listing that prohibits addtional lube, then well maybe. But can you imagine if you did a 500' pull of 500kcmil cables, w/o lube and about halfway it got stuck? Granted, you could try blaming the manufacturer, and try to get your money back somehow. But in the meantime you have a halfway done job that have to finish, which may involve pulling the cables back out, cutting in a box to splice in, whatever, all kinds of time consuming additional work, because you didn't use lube. I'd have to see it myself to be convinced, I wouldn't want to be the guy in charge of a big wire pull that goes wrong because of that new SIM PULL.

Based on the cutsheet on their website, it states "may be installed without the need for pulling lubricant".
So you can glob on the lube if you want to without problems with the cables.

Now if the Specifications on the job (like for Hospital work) prohibit the use of lube on certain runs; that's a separate issue.

I wonder how it pulls without lube.