System install from HELL!!!!

[Soundy 1]

There's no reason a splice can't be perfectly solid and reliable if done right.

+1

Anyone that does alot of upgrade or service work surely has done alot of solid splicing in their time. Or dealing with electricians that run the cable to the wrong spot, or camera has to be moved for whatever reason and well client does not have endless funding.

Also good points.

 

OF COURSE the ideal solution when you have a broken run, or one you need to extend, is to pull all the old wire out and pull in some new stuff. How often is that really feasible? Try dealing with gas stations where the conduit to the pumps has been sealed with 6+ inches if chico, and just see how easy it is to extract that old wire...

[Soundy 1]

funny to see how so many people jump to conclusions and don't bother reading the initial posts all the way thru.

 

Tom and Rory are right, it seems the power supply is not putting out the correct amps even though it is showing the correct voltage. I have purchased a AC power supply for these far runs to correct the problem.

That's probably more a matter of the power runs simply dropping too much voltage over that length, moreso than the PSU not supplying enough current. Doubling the voltage to 24VAC reduces the current requirements by about half, and thus reduces the losses by about half.

 

Now to answer some of the other questions about this install. My distributor for this cable tested this cable with another tester and it is a BAD REEL of cable. It seems they got it from a cable liquidator and it was liquidated for a reason. I told him he will have to reimburse me for this cable and time spent trouble shooting, which will be taken out of my Net30 payment with them.

But... but... it's not possible to have the whole box be bad! Or so I've been told...

 

As for the splice. This splice is needed. I wish I could run the cable the additional 150ft from where the splice is, but to do so is to hard and a splice works fine. I had to run the cable over a live milk cartoon tramway that never shuts down and they do not want any particals falling into the milk cartons from pulling this cable. So what I did was throw it over the tramway, splice it thru a hole we made in a wall 25ft up in the ceiling where not scissor lift or ladder fits. Could we have run the full run. Yes we could have, but the amount of time it would have taken and the possibilities of containmating the milk cartons was to great, so a splice is what we decided on. Call it lazy, I call it getting it done in a manner that suites the live enviorment we are in with the specifications of our customer and keeping it within the alloted time frame (that has been blown up) to get this install taken care of within the budget that will either make money or lose money due to time mis-spent. If you where to see how the cable had to be run, you would understand. But then again maybe you wouldn't.

Actually sounds quite similar to the bottling plant we did... fortunately we didn't have to run over the operating production lines, but we did have to go over the shipping/receiving area and the constant stream of forklifts driven by complete maniacs.

 

Soundy you also seemed to know what you were talking about in your posts and it was what we were going thru and why we did what we did.

Been there, done that, got the (very dirty!) T-shirt!

[bpzle 0]

Congratulations on getting it working. Hopefully you will be able to recoup some of your lost revenue dealing with the defective cable. Let us know if you do get reimbursed from the distributor for lost labor. I think he might have other intentions. Just be careful of using cheap cable.

 

I like that response.

[Tailbone215 0]

It happens; I've seen it, I've done it, in the same sort of situation (bottling plant running 24/7, dodging forklifts driven by maniacs and speed freaks... gobs of fun!) A zig-zagging run through truss and Q-deck can't be done in one non-stop pull, and if the activity below prevents staging the run, you're left with little option but to make junction points.

 

Huh? If you gotta go through all of that you better have enough manpower and be running pulling line till you get to the point of where you have everything figured out and can make the final pull in one shot while having the help at the difficult points nursing the cable along.

 

"Enough manpower." Right. And what do you do when that exceeds a "reasonable" point? If I'd had to do the aforementioned bottling plant with a single pull, some runs would have required (NO EXAGGERATION!) six guys, five of them on lifts. I mean yeah, that woulda been great, zip through the whole job in no time... however, since we're normally a crew of two, that would mean hiring four subs and renting three extra lifts for the day. And don't forget the constant flow of forklifts zipping around - with two of us and a single lift, it was possible to stay out of the way for the most part... any more than that, the client would never have gone for the level of disruption.

 

I've said it before: sometimes you have to do what you have to do to keep things "reasonable"; the ideal situation is rarely possible.

 

I do agree with you, but that's why you assess the job and plan out the best course of attack. The problem with splices is you have just created another maintenance point and a potential for possible failure you normally wouldn't have had before with a single run. The bottom line is you gotta do what you feel you gotta do. Plus, if you have to be in that location to pull the wire in the first place splicing it isn't going to be saving you any manhours.

[Tailbone215 0]

There's no reason a splice can't be perfectly solid and reliable if done right.

+1

Anyone that does alot of upgrade or service work surely has done alot of solid splicing in their time. Or dealing with electricians that run the cable to the wrong spot, or camera has to be moved for whatever reason and well client does not have endless funding.

Also good points.

 

OF COURSE the ideal solution when you have a broken run, or one you need to extend, is to pull all the old wire out and pull in some new stuff. How often is that really feasible? Try dealing with gas stations where the conduit to the pumps has been sealed with 6+ inches if chico, and just see how easy it is to extract that old wire...

 

I don't think anyone is saying splicing is taboo, you just have to do it where it is easily accessible in case you have problem. Too many times I have seen splices buried in walls. As for gas stations, if you got to make a splice because you miscalculated length you are also going to be dealing with conduit and explosion proof boxes. Please don't tell me you would slide a BNC barrel connector combo inside a conduit. I know you won't as I feel you know better.