Pulling Through a 250' conduit

[jdieter]

Thinking outside the box

Haven't pre-lubed with a vac, my guess is the lube will not get very far in the conduit unless you have a ****-pot full of lube to keep feeding, would be the same as trying to blow the lube in. Have lubed up conduit before with a pull rope and rag making a few trips back and forth. The lube in aerosol form with the plastic tube works good for this.

 

[simpler=better]

Haven't pre-lubed with a vac, my guess is the lube will not get very far in the conduit unless you have a ****-pot full of lube to keep feeding, would be the same as trying to blow the lube in. Have lubed up conduit before with a pull rope and rag making a few trips back and forth. The lube in aerosol form with the plastic tube works good for this.

This is what I meant^

Sucking it through with a bag or some kind of wipe. Just straight goop will eventually make it through after like 50 hours

Maybe if he boils the lube first?

 

[MFortie]

A couple of things to be aware of:

Max pulling tension on a typical CAT6 cable is 25 lbs. Cable weights run around 25lbs/1000', so at the end of your pull, you have about 19 lbs of pulling tension available.

Testing for CAT6 goes well beyond just continuity as well.

Per TIA/EIA standards, a maximum of (2) 90 degree bends are allowed for a data run (mind you, these are standards, not code...)

Non gel-filled plenum and non-plenum cables will not survive in a wet environment; I've had projects where even new dry water blocked indoor/outdoor cables that were pulled through wet conduits failed immediately after installation. That cable is no longer manufactured as a result...

In my professional opinion (Registered Communications Distribution Designer), your best solution is to lay a couple of outside plant rated (direct burial) cables in the trench before backfilling. Use armored cable if you have a rodent potential.

One more thing, OSP (outside plant) cable cannot be run more than 50' inside a building outside of conduit (per the NEC) unless it's a listed (UL) cable such as: http://ce.superioressex.com/uploadedFiles/Docs/PDF/Catalogs/Communications/OSP-Broadband-IO.pdf

Hope this helps...

 

[600SL]

A couple of things to be aware of:

Max pulling tension on a typical CAT6 cable is 25 lbs. Cable weights run around 25lbs/1000', so at the end of your pull, you have about 19 lbs of pulling tension available.

Testing for CAT6 goes well beyond just continuity as well.

Per TIA/EIA standards, a maximum of (2) 90 degree bends are allowed for a data run (mind you, these are standards, not code...)

Non gel-filled plenum and non-plenum cables will not survive in a wet environment; I've had projects where even new dry water blocked indoor/outdoor cables that were pulled through wet conduits failed immediately after installation. That cable is no longer manufactured as a result...

In my professional opinion (Registered Communications Distribution Designer), your best solution is to lay a couple of outside plant rated (direct burial) cables in the trench before backfilling. Use armored cable if you have a rodent potential.

One more thing, OSP (outside plant) cable cannot be run more than 50' inside a building outside of conduit (per the NEC) unless it's a listed (UL) cable such as: http://ce.superioressex.com/uploadedFiles/Docs/PDF/Catalogs/Communications/OSP-Broadband-IO.pdf

Hope this helps...

Good to know.

As it is very unusual luck may be on my side. The guy laying the water and gas is coming tomorrow. Hopefully he will have the install inspected late in the day. That may give me the weekend to deal with it before it gets back filled. If that works out I will try the PVC. If I have to wait for Monday for inspection I will be back in the same issue of having to use the liquid tight. But I have ordered 1000' of underground direct burial cable so I can place up to 3 redundant lines outside the conduit. And then try to get the original planed 4th one inside.

I do feel a lot more comfortable with it in the conduit as the only way I know if have a rodent problem will be when one bites the cable.

As far as bends I will have 1 large radius 90° bends at out building and about 2 or 3 really large radius like 48" that I may need to heat to bend the PVC. The rest of the bends I believe will not require heat.

 

[simpler=better]

Good to know.

As it is very unusual luck may be on my side. The guy laying the water and gas is coming tomorrow. Hopefully he will have the install inspected late in the day. That may give me the weekend to deal with it before it gets back filled. If that works out I will try the PVC. If I have to wait for Monday for inspection I will be back in the same issue of having to use the liquid tight. But I have ordered 1000' of underground direct burial cable so I can place up to 3 redundant lines outside the conduit. And then try to get the original planed 4th one inside.

I do feel a lot more comfortable with it in the conduit as the only way I know if have a rodent problem will be when one bites the cable.

As far as bends I will have 1 large radius 90° bends at out building and about 2 or 3 really large radius like 48" that I may need to heat to bend the PVC. The rest of the bends I believe will not require heat.

Make sure you take pictures for us!

 

[600SL]

Well luck wasn't exactly on my side but not too bad. The plumber got the plumbing in today but no inspection. He was here too late. But he did tell me that if I could form the bends in the PVC he would put the rest of it together. So this weekend I will make up all the bent segments of PVC.

 

[FullRaceMerc]

Ok, I have to admit I haven't read every post, so this may be redundant.

We use a vacuum. Hundreds of feet go surprisingly fast with a 5 hp shop vac. The conduit acts like a long vacuum hose & the amount of pull can be felt at the far end.

If you use the string to pull the wire directly, the narrow string can burn thru PVC bends. Even with large sweeping bends.

Vacuum pulls mouse (Cotton, vacuum sock, wad of something).
Mouse pulls string.
String pulls rope (Another mule tape fan here).
Rope pulls wire.

String fed thru as PVC is assembled takes a chance of being glued in place. It doesn't take much of a drip to ruin your day. Even if you use another method to pull, take care to keep glue out of the interior of the conduit.

 

[jdieter]

If OP was going to conduit and concerned about the pull length, as many have suggested putting in the conduit and pull rope one section at a time is doable for sure. But why wouldn't you lay out the cable and slide each stick down the conductor. As MFortie noted,
Cat6 is not going to handle much pulling force.

 

[gregtwojeeps]

If OP was going to conduit and concerned about the pull length, as many have suggested putting in the conduit and pull rope one section at a time is doable for sure. But why wouldn't you lay out the cable and slide each stick down the conductor. As MFortie noted,
Cat6 is not going to handle much pulling force.

Cat 6 is pretty tough stuff IMO, if handled/pulled using reasonable force...

A lot easier for the cable to get damaged laying it out on the ground and fighting with it, plus possibly snagging in on the edges of the PVC and nicking it, pulling in debris ETC.. ....all while putting it in the PVC ten feet at a time. Make a solid conduit run, get a helper feeding in it, pull it in smooth with a pull rope and be done. JMO

 

[wkearney99]

String fed thru as PVC is assembled takes a chance of being glued in place. It doesn't take much of a drip to ruin your day.

Made that mistake... once. Damned irritating to discover the pull... wouldn't and the broke well short. Leaving the led-in part would have complicated things even more, but that piece was MUCH more securely glued down. Wasted waaaaaay too much time wrangling with THAT mess.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

If OP was going to conduit and concerned about the pull length, as many have suggested putting in the conduit and pull rope one section at a time is doable for sure. But why wouldn't you lay out the cable and slide each stick down the conductor. As MFortie noted, Cat6 is not going to handle much pulling force.

Because u still need to glue it together and glue would most certainly get on the CAT6.

This is just the reason why code says u need to have the conduit assembled first before pulling the conductors in. Of course, thats for electrical wire but the principle reason behind the requirement would be the same for any wire.

And yes CAT5 CAT6 etc does have a maximum pulling force...

 

[600SL]

So as my plumber stated if I make the bends he will set the PVC. So the bends are made. Actually if it wasen't so muddy you could probably get away with flexing the pipe and staking it in and using a few 45° fittings here and there. I placed a rope through the pipe and tied it to hold it bent like a bow. Then I applied heat to it until the stress was somewhat relived. Reworking as required.

Then I got artistic and bent an offset and stub up. Over heated the bend for the stub up so I had to replace it with a 90° glue in. So now I have the stub up connected to another length of conduit. My plumber will be able to just install that assembly and it will take him out of the flooded end by the garage.

 

[600SL]

More pix

 

[Speedy Petey]

More pix

Good for you going with PVC.

Just to note, if you need a bender shoe to guide your PVC bends you are not heating up enough length. With buried PVC the bends do not have to look perfect or be exactly the same. If you are kinking like that simply heat up more of the pipe. You want to heat up probably twice the area of the bend so that it can transition smoothly into the actual bend area.

Also, from the looks of that trench, I would have needed bends at the stub-ups and that's it. Glue together most of the length and throw it in the trench. Even 1" would bend and follow that trench by itself.

 

[zmaxmotorsports]

Good for you going with PVC.

Just to note, if you need a bender shoe to guide your PVC bends you are not heating up enough length. With buried PVC the bends do not have to look perfect or be exactly the same. If you are kinking like that simply heat up more of the pipe. You want to heat up probably twice the area of the bend so that it can transition smoothly into the actual bend area.

Also, from the looks of that trench, I would have needed bends at the stub-ups and that's it. Glue together most of the length and throw it in the trench. Even 1" would bend and follow that trench by itself.

 

[600SL]

Good for you going with PVC.

Just to note, if you need a bender shoe to guide your PVC bends you are not heating up enough length. With buried PVC the bends do not have to look perfect or be exactly the same. If you are kinking like that simply heat up more of the pipe. You want to heat up probably twice the area of the bend so that it can transition smoothly into the actual bend area.

Also, from the looks of that trench, I would have needed bends at the stub-ups and that's it. Glue together most of the length and throw it in the trench. Even 1" would bend and follow that trench by itself.

I only used the bender to make my offest and that attempted 90°. I needed the guide lines for the offset so that worked out good.

I came to the same conclusion that the whole thing except for the stub up area could just be bent and held in place with stakes. Although that would require some big steaks in the mud I'm dealing with. Probably under the circumstances this will pay off and I would assume one could get quite fast at it with some practice.

I just hope he can get it in tomorrow, so I can get some dirt on it.

 

[RoyBell]

Glad to see it worked out. Maybe throw a run of cat 6 in the ditch in case for some reason you can't pull through the pvc

 

[w33b8t1]

I use 550 cord for pulls.

 

[jdieter]

Pre-fabed bends are based on a normal conduit bending radius. Eliminating every possible bend and letting the pipe follow the trench will pay off in the end. Even the stub-ups will help the pull if you bend as a large of radius as you can fit in the trench and still pop out vertical. Good-luck man, as has all ready been said, glad you forgot about the flex. If you can find someone with a car with several feet of straight tail pipe you can make the large radius bends in about a minute, it's a real pain to heat much area beyond a simple kick in the pipe with a heat gun.

 

[nsula_country]

It sounds like it may be too late, but if I needed to run ethernet 250ft I would buy a couple of these.

http://www.l-com.com/wireless-netwo...ge-24-ghz-wireless-n300-outdoor-client-bridge

I bought 2 of the previous model that this one replaced and use it to extend a network between 2 buildings that are about 300ft apart with a small highway between them. They have been installed for a year and I have had no issues at all. At $160 for a pair they are probably not much more than your conduit cost and with these you won't need to dig a trench or buy 250ft of ethernet cable.

PS, the max length for ethernet is usually 100 meters (328ft) so if you have a long run before or after the conduit you may run into problems or slow speeds.

3 of 5 pages before someone mentioned this... 100m max between switches.

By the pictures, I assume you have foliage between the source and the destination of your run. Hardline is best. Wireless doesn't like obstructions. I see you also ran spares, I was going to suggest that as well.

Clear line of sight and I would have used point-to-point radios in a heartbeat! Ubiquiti makes some awesome equipment.

If you ever have to re-pull, you will thank yourself for going PVC rigid over Seal-Tite/Seal-Flex. I did not even know it was sold in rolls over 100' and I buy the stuff all the time!

Good luck!

CT

 

[MFortie]

3 of 5 pages before someone mentioned this... 100m max between switches.

Well, technically it's 90 meters for the permanent link (patch panel to outlet) leaving 5 meters on each end for the patch cords...

 

[nsula_country]

Well, technically it's 90 meters for the permanent link (patch panel to outlet) leaving 5 meters on each end for the patch cords...

You are correct. I was waiting for someone to bust me on that! 90m+5m+5m=100m max...

CT

 

[wkearney99]

There are various in-line schemes to get around this. Most end up being as expensive as using fiber instead. The ideas being fiber is more durable has no inter-building electrical risks. As in, lightning at either end doesn't fry the connected gear. The converters on each end are reasonably priced, for what they do.

 

[600SL]

My cable will be about 250 ft total. Just got the inspection done today and the weather is clear to the weekend so I can leave it open.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

3 of 5 pages before someone mentioned this... 100m max between switches.

By the pictures, I assume you have foliage between the source and the destination of your run. Hardline is best. Wireless doesn't like obstructions. I see you also ran spares, I was going to suggest that as well.

Clear line of sight and I would have used point-to-point radios in a heartbeat! Ubiquiti makes some awesome equipment.

If you ever have to re-pull, you will thank yourself for going PVC rigid over Seal-Tite/Seal-Flex. I did not even know it was sold in rolls over 100' and I buy the stuff all the time!

Good luck!

CT

Yes Ubiquiti makes great products.

I install something of theirs every week!

Ive done point to points with nano stations, nano bridges, nano beams, rocket Ms, and air fibers....

 

[600SL]

Well the job is now complete. I was able to get the track hoe guy to hold off until today so I had yesterday to install PVC. Everything went well. Very easy to pull through PVC dry. I cant possibly imagine the how liquid tight could be so bad even with lube. But at least I will never know.

So now I have water running to a hydrant. Got that in with the temperatures last night kissing 32° last night. I also have gas running to the shed and Ethernet.

Now just a little financial recovery time before putting heat in.

Total Cost $3,237.65

 

[simpler=better]

You dun good :thumbsup:

 

[FullRaceMerc]

Glad to hear that it went well.

As for seeming like liquid-tite couldn't have been too bad: it is the sort of thing once you have had a tough pull where it looks like you might have to tear apart or dig up a lot of work, you take every step to make every future pull as easy as possible. Liquid-tite feels like it has more drag than PVC. A little drag for every foot over 3' isn't bad. A little drag for each foot for 250' can add up to a lot of drag. And if it snakes back & forth in the ditch that adds more drag. There comes a point where all those "littles" just add up to too much. It's good that you avoided finding out.

 

[jdieter]

Glad to hear that it went well.

As for seeming like liquid-tite couldn't have been too bad: it is the sort of thing once you have had a tough pull where it looks like you might have to tear apart or dig up a lot of work, you take every step to make every future pull as easy as possible. Liquid-tite feels like it has more drag than PVC. A little drag for every foot over 3' isn't bad. A little drag for each foot for 250' can add up to a lot of drag. And if it snakes back & forth in the ditch that adds more drag. There comes a point where all those "littles" just add up to too much. It's good that you avoided finding out.

Gotta agree, had to pull 3#12THHN in close to 50' 3/4" sealtite. Could have done the job quicker by find a route for conduit and using a few "C" condulets to assist the pull. Anyway glad to see you changed to pipe and grass is growing.

 

[600SL]

Finally had the chance to hook my computer up in the garage today. The connection went perfectly and the speed is the same at the garage as it is in the house.