Need Wire Pulling Help

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May 22, 2007 | 09:09 PM

Bruker

Thread Starter

Fleet Mechanic

Joined: Oct 2002

Posts: 1,385

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From: Mercer County, OH

Need Wire Pulling Help

I'm installing some low-voltage step lights in my brothers patio. The boxes are concreted in and they're connected with that blue flexible corrugated conduit. I'm now trying to get the wire through and I'm first pulling a string through the conduit by hooking a shop-vac up to one end and feeding a string through the other end. It's worked great for the first few boxes but now I'm struggling getting it through a long ~20' run that consist of about 5' of 1/2" corrugated to 10' of 1" solid PVC to another 5' of 1/2" corrugated. The shop-vac method is putting great vacuum on the run but I can't get the string to feed all the way through (it's getting hung up somewhere). The bends are too tight to run a fish tape through and wire gets hung up in the corrugated conduit. Any ideas?

May 22, 2007 | 09:36 PM

jake00

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Joined: Apr 2004

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From: NW burbs of chicago

put a small ball of string on the end?

May 22, 2007 | 09:38 PM

Torque1st

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Joined: Sep 2001

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Tie the string to a cotton ball.

May 22, 2007 | 09:42 PM

bucks77ford

Post Fiend

Joined: Jan 2006

Posts: 5,037

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From: Kasson, Minnesota

How many bends are there and are they 90 degrees? A fish tape should still work. It might be getting hung up on the connectors rather then the bends.

May 22, 2007 | 10:02 PM

Bdox

Fleet Owner

Joined: Sep 2005

Posts: 28,609

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From: Lake Tahoe, Nevada

If all else fails, try pushing some piano wire or metal fishing leader wire through. Make a small loop in the end and tape it because a sharp end tends to catch on anything.

May 22, 2007 | 10:11 PM

conger

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Joined: May 2006

Posts: 1,028

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From: Edmonton, AB.

Try using a piece of plastic from a bag or something cut about a 3" piece. Ball it up and tie the string around it so it make kind of a ball on the end. Try the shop vac on that... make sure you got a good seal. If your still stuck, might be the coreline conduit came apart or got crushed. If you can't push a fishtape you might have some flattening or too many bends. You also might try pushing the fishtape with some wire lube. I hope this helps a bit. I'm an electrician and have had corelines (blue flex) crushed on 200' runs. Sometimes the only course is to cut the slab and repair the pipe. If you can figure out where the tape gets stuck, it might give you a clue as what the problem is. Hope this helps....