You can also reduce pulling force required by utilizing cable pulling gel (lubricant). It's dialectic gel so it will also have the added benefit of displacing any water that may infiltrate the conduit in the future! The popular brand "Cable Lube" is sold at Home Depot in easy squeeze quarts.
David Brelin I used cable last be by the bucket pulling 6ga wire through conduit in my house. It really helps as you say. My lines are for 120v 20A branch circuits to reduce line loss (we’re off grid and 6% matters to me)
Yeah it counts if you make you happy..... By us we make special winter drink 1/2l red wine 2-3 spoon's of sugar 1/3 of size of small finger whole cinnamon Klink's spines? 20pieces Little bit of vanilla Heat until it boil and drink warm... 👍 Cheers... 👍
I'll bet if you look closely at the wire you'll see a rating of THHN/THWN -2 which allows it to be underground---the wire commonly available at Home Depot and Lowes. Nice job.
Late to the show, but I wouldn't recommend using that twine to pull anything next to your existing wire, Just like you saw with the twine cutting into your conduit, it'll also cut into your wire causing a potential short.
FYI. Pulling a long length of wire with multiple deviations is a 2 man job. One feeds the wire and makes sure there is minimal tension and the other person pulls.
@@DavidPozEnergy A lot of cable pullers that work in pairs, will tell you that cable pulling, is actually cable pushing. The person pulling does very little and only applies constant pressure, and person pushing does more work and controls the rate and helps it A lot.As a person that does a lot of things alone, I will say you pulled that cables very well. As others mentioned, special cable pulling lube helps. Sometimes talk could help, but it should be avoided, as it can combine with moisture and cause problems later on.
When you tie the mule tape or jet line on the end of your cable, use a series of half hitches evenly spaced for each cable in the bundle. After taping the tail like you did when pulling the string, it will tighten onto the cables instead of depending on the tape. Uses less tape too.
As mentioned, wire ease will help, but it's a pain to clean up after, and your conduit, should have been 1 inch. Most will what you did to save money, as 1 inch is triple the cost, but on such a short run the payback is in how fast the pull is, and if you had the room you can pull an extra string for future pulls. Maybe some type of monitoring wire, etc. Also, you should have uncoiled the wire, and looped them over your support bracket. For, all 90 degree changes you should coil a loop of wire for stress relief, which means a box instead of the fittings you used. Otherwise, spot on for technique.
Hi C MH. Thanks for watching. I did use one-inch conduit. It must look small on the screen. What diameter conduit did you think I used? I like your suggestion for a box to incorporate a loop of wire. Thanks.
@DP, looked like 1/2 inch, and the conductors looked tight, when you were doing the pull. I like your equipment, but as you are experiencing any MACs (move, addition, changes) are a pain when you restrict yourself to a cabinet. Before you get to deep, you might want to think you layout. Because you will make others changes, it's the nature of the beast. I have a Honda 7000 iu, great generators. Not cheap, but it will last a lifetime. Keep up the good work, very entertaining. THX
just a question,,about the wire ,,wouldn't you loose amps running that far ,with that size wire? on dc,, because i ran welding cable on mine,was 100 feet,,
Yes, any wire will loose some energy in the transmission. When I was sizing my wire for my array I could have used 8 gauge (AWG) according to the amp table. However, I used 6 gauge (thicker) just to minimize any voltage drop. I'm thinking of making a video just going through the numbers, but it might be too boring. What do you think?
Put a Circuit Breaker or Disconnect on the incoming wire from the Solar Panels. Do not connect directly to the Charge Controller. I know you have Circuit Breakers out at the Solar Panels, but you need a way of disconnecting the power going into the Charge Controller.
I agree with you. The next video will show me installing a GFPD circuit breaker inside the garage between the solar combiner box and the charge controller. Thanks for watching.
If I was pulling that big of a wire I would use a lube. I noticed my local electrical supply sells this lube: amzn.to/2lBM18B And the conduit would have to be bigger.
1/0 is heavy and expensive. Consider using more than one pair of conductors. Connect panels in series to get the greatest voltage your charge controller(s) can handle.
I always use weed eater line, but I can tell you that the chances of being able to use that line to pull another wire (later if needed) are pretty much zero. Because what you'll fine is that the lines spun as you pulled them through, and that string isn't a straight pull.
Input/question about part 3:20. The String groove. Could it be caused by friction? And was caused by vacuum suction speed? If line was hand fed at a slower rate? I know lubricant works in almost all situations*^ (lol), But was not cause of this effect? And TY OGP. IS GOOD! And Thank you for showing mistakes along the way! That is the "IRREPLACEABLE ATTITUDE" I wish all had; so we could learn how not do do that*! Jaws
The string cutting in is not from speed, it is when you pull hard on it dragging behind the heavy cables. The mule tape helps spread out the load to avoid cutting. Thanks for watching.
@@DavidPozEnergy When pulling heavier wire, you can suck in a string, connect a wire pulling rope to it and pull the rope. Then you use lube and connect the wires to the rope. The rope has a larger diameter and different texture and friction compared to a thin string.
Sounds like you did ok on this one but any time I deal with DC there's always the "what if" in the back of my mind concerning voltage drop. I read the comments where you seem to be ok there but wonder what real numbers come in under FULL system load, only because it reminds me of a short story about a guy who ran like 800 ft of wire, but it was AC. He figured it was heavy enough to get 50 amps at the end and after comparing real world to an actual load it was off by a bit. Bottom line was 10% voltage drop at 30 amps. Still usable but quite a loss considering NEC wants less than 5% drop.
Hi rupe53. Yes, I think I'm OK in this one detail. I'm measured it several times, even under full load +. and have never seen over 2% voltage drop from the combiner box to the charge controller. I remember when I was sizing this I could have used 8 gauge according to code, but under full load it would have been over 3% voltage drop, so I used bigger (6 gauge) wire.
I saw the video and thought that those wires looked rather thin,, so I tried to punch in the numbers in one of those "DC Cable Sizing Tool" and found that 6 gauge would keep you under 2% voltages lose,, and also found that you had seen 1,6%. And you would need 3 gauge to stay under 1%,, That would become expensive and difficult to work with. So this is propoly the best choice.
David Koz I mean across wires. You can measure voltage in combiner box and at MPPT. The difference between is the voltage drop consumed by 100ft wires.
At the combiner box it was 180.0 and at the MPPT controller, 178.8. But the numbers were bouncing +/- a volt. It might be more accurate on a day with no clouds? I'm not sure. I know that when I was sizing the wires for worst case I found 8 AWG satisfied code, but I went up to 6 AWG just to keep my voltage drop lower. Right now the system is doing 1.8kw. Is this in line with your testing on your system?
I thought code required 50% area in a conduit...wouldn't that mean for 3 wires of 6 ga that you would need a 2 inch conduit? That looks like its 100 percent filled with wire. "Minimum size for buried conduit shall be 3 inches for all conductor smaller than 500 MCM, and 4 inches for primary or conductor 500 MCM or larger" is the requirement I can find
I'm not sure where you found that quote. Perhaps in industry, or commercial applications? I've never seen 3" conduit on any residential projects. As for the fill, when I put the wires into an online calculator it says I'm less than 18% full. www.southwire.com/calculator-conduit
@@DavidPozEnergy I was searching for the exact requirement. I remember reading in a book the 50% rule but I couldn't find the exact verbiage. That is a great calculator! It looks completely full in the video. What does the inspector use for their "level of fullness?" I am getting ready to run power to my out garage and I have to run 2-2-2-4 cable. That calculator says that me running 2 inch PVC will result in 12% fill, which is great for what I want to do.
Because it takes way too much time to feed the next section of conduit over the wires. When you are trying to join two chunks of conduit that may not have a lot of wiggle room, you may damage the wire if it's in the conduit.
Great job and now your secret is out lol go easy on the mellon (head ) you will need it later but I am glad you left that part in shows you are human too
Should have rolled your wire off in the yard then went over the PVC looks like you could have pushed it halfway there also instead of spending money on lbs leave your conduit apart and glue it later when you get the wire in but good job
Hi James, Perhaps I'm using the wrong term as I'm not an electrician. The guys at the store called it THHN so that's what I'm calling it. This is what is printed on the side of the wire "6 AWG TYPE MTW OR THHN OR THWN-2 GF2 SUN-RES VW-1 600V (UL)" Is there a better name for this? Thanks.
@@DavidPozEnergy I think you'll find this passes. THWN--the W stands for "wet" location. If I'm not mistaken, the ampacity is somewhat reduced but that would require more research than I can do at 10 pm.
@@DavidPozEnergy one quick tip if you ever need to pull wire like this again just run it out flat on the ground and pull it into the conduit. I used to be a fiber optic technician for my local telephone company and I would just run the fiber out down a fence line or back and forth in a customer's backyard then go down the street and pull it there's really no resistance added to it dragging on the ground as long as you're not pulling it through mud. The address you built would work for getting the correct angle for the wires to slide into the conduit but I usually just used a ratchet strap around the Box that would give it a little bit of a hoist up and down into the conduit we also had flexible conduit in our vehicles as well wish I had used on occasion to get cable down into tight spots
You can also reduce pulling force required by utilizing cable pulling gel (lubricant). It's dialectic gel so it will also have the added benefit of displacing any water that may infiltrate the conduit in the future!
The popular brand "Cable Lube" is sold at Home Depot in easy squeeze quarts.
David Brelin I used cable last be by the bucket pulling 6ga wire through conduit in my house. It really helps as you say. My lines are for 120v 20A branch circuits to reduce line loss (we’re off grid and 6% matters to me)
You can also use dishwashing liquid
4:49 OUCH !! LOL 6:16 Camera girl.. I learned something else (THWN-2 covers most of the applications these days) !! Thanks David & TrackGeeks
Great job! Not being an electrician I wasn't aware of the web solution---way cool!
Love your fishing of string
Learn something every day
Yeah it counts if you make you happy.....
By us we make special winter drink
1/2l red wine
2-3 spoon's of sugar
1/3 of size of small finger whole cinnamon
Klink's spines? 20pieces
Little bit of vanilla
Heat until it boil and drink warm... 👍
Cheers... 👍
I'll bet if you look closely at the wire you'll see a rating of THHN/THWN -2 which allows it to be underground---the wire commonly available at Home Depot and Lowes. Nice job.
Thanks Mark, This is what is printed on the side of the wire "6 AWG TYPE MTW OR THHN OR THWN-2 GF2 SUN-RES VW-1 600V (UL)"
Single rated THHN has all but disappeared now and most wire you find is multi-rated. THWN-2 covers most of the applications these days.
Late to the show, but I wouldn't recommend using that twine to pull anything next to your existing wire,
Just like you saw with the twine cutting into your conduit, it'll also cut into your wire causing a potential short.
Great job.💪👍 i also used this same type of cable and so far no problem with the voltage needer amps from array.
From a "OLD" guy, Master, It's called a "Mouse" to suck string, But a "Condom" Reg, size works just as well!
Charleton Zimmerman ... but shopping bags are free...
FYI. Pulling a long length of wire with multiple deviations is a 2 man job. One feeds the wire and makes sure there is minimal tension and the other person pulls.
Yep, two people would make it easier.
@@DavidPozEnergy A lot of cable pullers that work in pairs, will tell you that cable pulling, is actually cable pushing. The person pulling does very little and only applies constant pressure, and person pushing does more work and controls the rate and helps it A lot.As a person that does a lot of things alone, I will say you pulled that cables very well. As others mentioned, special cable pulling lube helps. Sometimes talk could help, but it should be avoided, as it can combine with moisture and cause problems later on.
heya that is a long peace of cable you have to pull well done
This is two man job... One on the start other at the end and on the end two beers 🍻 👍
I'll take a hard cider instead of beer.
@@DavidPozEnergy BTW, with someone feeding from the start end the string wont dig into the conduit as much.
Wow, that's really a long and good wire fishing dude, congrats to catch :)
Excellent video.... 👍
Great job by you,wifey, and the baby!
Thanks.
great info from the best channel on utube thank you keep up the good work
Thanks.
When you tie the mule tape or jet line on the end of your cable, use a series of half hitches evenly spaced for each cable in the bundle. After taping the tail like you did when pulling the string, it will tighten onto the cables instead of depending on the tape. Uses less tape too.
Great tip. I love when pros share some wisdom. Thanks.
As mentioned, wire ease will help, but it's a pain to clean up after, and your conduit, should have been 1 inch. Most will what you did to save money, as 1 inch is triple the cost, but on such a short run the payback is in how fast the pull is, and if you had the room you can pull an extra string for future pulls. Maybe some type of monitoring wire, etc. Also, you should have uncoiled the wire, and looped them over your support bracket. For, all 90 degree changes you should coil a loop of wire for stress relief, which means a box instead of the fittings you used. Otherwise, spot on for technique.
Hi C MH. Thanks for watching. I did use one-inch conduit. It must look small on the screen. What diameter conduit did you think I used? I like your suggestion for a box to incorporate a loop of wire. Thanks.
@DP, looked like 1/2 inch, and the conductors looked tight, when you were doing the pull. I like your equipment, but as you are experiencing any MACs (move, addition, changes) are a pain when you restrict yourself to a cabinet. Before you get to deep, you might want to think you layout. Because you will make others changes, it's the nature of the beast. I have a Honda 7000 iu, great generators. Not cheap, but it will last a lifetime. Keep up the good work, very entertaining. THX
just a question,,about the wire ,,wouldn't you loose amps running that far ,with that size wire? on dc,, because i ran welding cable on mine,was 100 feet,,
Yes, any wire will loose some energy in the transmission. When I was sizing my wire for my array I could have used 8 gauge (AWG) according to the amp table. However, I used 6 gauge (thicker) just to minimize any voltage drop. I'm thinking of making a video just going through the numbers, but it might be too boring. What do you think?
The higher the voltage the smaller the wire , what voltage will your charge controller work with ?
Put a Circuit Breaker or Disconnect on the incoming wire from the Solar Panels. Do not connect directly to the Charge Controller. I know you have Circuit Breakers out at the Solar Panels, but you need a way of disconnecting the power going into the Charge Controller.
I agree with you. The next video will show me installing a GFPD circuit breaker inside the garage between the solar combiner box and the charge controller. Thanks for watching.
Is the procedure the same if you're running 1/0 THHN? My array is 160' from the power center, so #6 won't cut it.
If I was pulling that big of a wire I would use a lube. I noticed my local electrical supply sells this lube: amzn.to/2lBM18B And the conduit would have to be bigger.
1/0 is heavy and expensive. Consider using more than one pair of conductors. Connect panels in series to get the greatest voltage your charge controller(s) can handle.
I always use weed eater line, but I can tell you that the chances of being able to use that line to pull another wire (later if needed) are pretty much zero. Because what you'll fine is that the lines spun as you pulled them through, and that string isn't a straight pull.
no schedule 80?
I used sch40 conduit.
Is that 1/2 or 3/4 conduit?
1" conduit.
Mash Allah your idea is fantastic. Using a vacuum cleaner.
Input/question about part 3:20. The String groove.
Could it be caused by friction? And was caused by vacuum suction speed? If line was hand fed at a slower rate? I know lubricant works in almost all situations*^ (lol), But was not cause of this effect? And TY OGP. IS GOOD! And Thank you for showing mistakes along the way! That is the "IRREPLACEABLE ATTITUDE" I wish all had; so we could learn how not do do that*!
Jaws
The string cutting in is not from speed, it is when you pull hard on it dragging behind the heavy cables. The mule tape helps spread out the load to avoid cutting. Thanks for watching.
@@DavidPozEnergy When pulling heavier wire, you can suck in a string, connect a wire pulling rope to it and pull the rope. Then you use lube and connect the wires to the rope. The rope has a larger diameter and different texture and friction compared to a thin string.
Sounds like you did ok on this one but any time I deal with DC there's always the "what if" in the back of my mind concerning voltage drop. I read the comments where you seem to be ok there but wonder what real numbers come in under FULL system load, only because it reminds me of a short story about a guy who ran like 800 ft of wire, but it was AC. He figured it was heavy enough to get 50 amps at the end and after comparing real world to an actual load it was off by a bit. Bottom line was 10% voltage drop at 30 amps. Still usable but quite a loss considering NEC wants less than 5% drop.
Hi rupe53. Yes, I think I'm OK in this one detail. I'm measured it several times, even under full load +. and have never seen over 2% voltage drop from the combiner box to the charge controller. I remember when I was sizing this I could have used 8 gauge according to code, but under full load it would have been over 3% voltage drop, so I used bigger (6 gauge) wire.
I saw the video and thought that those wires looked rather thin,, so I tried to punch in the numbers in one of those "DC Cable Sizing Tool" and found that 6 gauge would keep you under 2% voltages lose,, and also found that you had seen 1,6%. And you would need 3 gauge to stay under 1%,, That would become expensive and difficult to work with. So this is propoly the best choice.
Exactly.
Great job!
Can You plase measure the voltage drop across theese 100 ft condiut?
How do you do that?
David Koz I mean across wires. You can measure voltage in combiner box and at MPPT. The difference between is the voltage drop consumed by 100ft wires.
Ah. OK. Give me a couple minutes, I'll go check.
At the combiner box it was 180.0 and at the MPPT controller, 178.8. But the numbers were bouncing +/- a volt. It might be more accurate on a day with no clouds? I'm not sure. I know that when I was sizing the wires for worst case I found 8 AWG satisfied code, but I went up to 6 AWG just to keep my voltage drop lower. Right now the system is doing 1.8kw. Is this in line with your testing on your system?
DavidPoz tomorow I”ll calculate teoretical dropp. It will be interesting to compare teory to real deal. Pls write me total length of Your 6AWG cable.
great job, regards
Smart guy one who will have two 🍻 for itself.. 👍
Ouch... gave it to that conduit dry! I hope you bought her a drink after you were done
I thought code required 50% area in a conduit...wouldn't that mean for 3 wires of 6 ga that you would need a 2 inch conduit? That looks like its 100 percent filled with wire. "Minimum size for buried conduit shall be
3 inches for all conductor smaller than 500 MCM, and 4 inches for primary or conductor 500 MCM or larger" is the requirement I can find
I'm not sure where you found that quote. Perhaps in industry, or commercial applications? I've never seen 3" conduit on any residential projects.
As for the fill, when I put the wires into an online calculator it says I'm less than 18% full. www.southwire.com/calculator-conduit
@@DavidPozEnergy I was searching for the exact requirement. I remember reading in a book the 50% rule but I couldn't find the exact verbiage. That is a great calculator! It looks completely full in the video. What does the inspector use for their "level of fullness?" I am getting ready to run power to my out garage and I have to run 2-2-2-4 cable. That calculator says that me running 2 inch PVC will result in 12% fill, which is great for what I want to do.
@@jodydewey3516 ... don't forget the fill rate will dictate the max loading of the wires, and he's way under the load rating with #6 wire.
Always wondered why folks don't run cable as they put the conduits down.
Otherwise good video.
Because it takes way too much time to feed the next section of conduit over the wires.
When you are trying to join two chunks of conduit that may not have a lot of wiggle room, you may damage the wire if it's in the conduit.
Also it is against code. The NEC wants raceways to be complete before the pull. It should also be free of water, mud, etc.
Great job and now your secret is out lol go easy on the mellon (head ) you will need it later but I am glad you left that part in shows you are human too
When I was editing I just kept laughing at myself hitting my head. It was too good to leave out.
David you should use black duck tape
Should have rolled your wire off in the yard then went over the PVC looks like you could have pushed it halfway there also instead of spending money on lbs leave your conduit apart and glue it later when you get the wire in but good job
Good tip. You are right about laying it out. If I knew that I could have saved some time.
Thhn it's not direct burial wire, I know it's in conduit, but code wont sign off on that
Hi James, Perhaps I'm using the wrong term as I'm not an electrician. The guys at the store called it THHN so that's what I'm calling it. This is what is printed on the side of the wire "6 AWG TYPE MTW OR THHN OR THWN-2 GF2 SUN-RES VW-1 600V (UL)" Is there a better name for this? Thanks.
@@DavidPozEnergy that is what it's called, "thhn" however it's not ment to be "underground"
@@jamesmoore2007 it's dual rated
@@DavidPozEnergy I think you'll find this passes. THWN--the W stands for "wet" location. If I'm not mistaken, the ampacity is somewhat reduced but that would require more research than I can do at 10 pm.
@Mark: Thanks Mark. Taking the time to include a link to a resource is extremely helpful.
Anybody else jump or cringe when he smacked his head?
Yeah, me. LOL
@@DavidPozEnergy one quick tip if you ever need to pull wire like this again just run it out flat on the ground and pull it into the conduit. I used to be a fiber optic technician for my local telephone company and I would just run the fiber out down a fence line or back and forth in a customer's backyard then go down the street and pull it there's really no resistance added to it dragging on the ground as long as you're not pulling it through mud. The address you built would work for getting the correct angle for the wires to slide into the conduit but I usually just used a ratchet strap around the Box that would give it a little bit of a hoist up and down into the conduit we also had flexible conduit in our vehicles as well wish I had used on occasion to get cable down into tight spots
@Wayhart: Thanks for sharing your experience. I'll try it that way next time.
I ducked , hats are good for warning
ahhhh
Improve your safety by helmets and hand gloves
You need a HELPER!!!!!