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Author Topic: fishing wires through conduit  (Read 1633 times)

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Offline Cornbelt

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fishing wires through conduit
« on: October 11, 2012, 01:52:31 PM »
  Tie a cotton ball on some builders' string. Stick that end in the conduit and put a vacume cleaner on the other end.
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Offline PowPow

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Re: fishing wires through conduit
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2012, 01:58:34 PM »
Saw a guy do it with something like dental floss and a blower dryer.
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Offline Doug B.

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Re: Fishing Wires Through Conduit
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2012, 03:15:03 PM »
A coworker and I were getting ready to pull some fiber optic line through about 515' of "fresh" conduit. Tied a piece of plastic, a sandwich bag I believe, to a length of regular plastic pull string and sucked it through in about 25-30 seconds, maybe less with the aid of a fairly large shop vac. I had never seen it done before and I was amazed at the speed the string peeled out of the box and how fast I was told over the radio to turn the vacuum off because the plastic and the start of the string had been "swallowed" by the vacuum cleaner on the far end. We didn't install any pull boxes for the string to go through because we had pretty much a straight shot from start to finish.

I was impressed.
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Offline grdad45

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Re: fishing wires through conduit
« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2012, 06:34:02 AM »
I'm a retired electrician, and have used that method for a long time (since 1962). The thing we used was called a "rat", made out of plastic foam, with a stiff wire through it. If there is a burr inside the conduit, a cotton ball would either get stuck or shed some material, losing vacuum. I have had to take a lot of conduit down to clear stoppages because of foreign material in the way.
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Offline mannyrock

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Re: fishing wires through conduit
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2012, 04:25:05 AM »
 
   Thanks for this great information guys. I am currently working on a project, and couldn't figure out how to do this.
 
Mannyrock
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Offline FPH

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Re: fishing wires through conduit
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2012, 04:52:18 AM »
Quote from: mannyrock on December 01, 2012, 04:25:05 AM

   Thanks for this great information guys. I am currently working on a project, and couldn't figure out how to do this.
 
Mannyrock
How about a fish tape?  I've used the air method with conduit up to 200' long and 4" in diameter.  Used a baggie and a compressor.
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Offline goodshot

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Re: fishing wires through conduit
« Reply #6 on: December 09, 2012, 03:56:51 AM »
the screw type conduit connectors don't seal well enough. always use the compression ring type connectors.
Best wishes, :)
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