Does anyone have any tips or advice that'll make pulling wires through metal conduit easier?
I wanted to install two new 3 way switches, and I need to add two more wires. There'll be 6 wires in the conduit in total, since there is already a couple 3 way switches for something else. I haven't checked the size of the conduit, but if it's 1/2 inch, and with all separate wires, I imagine it'll probably be next to impossible, unless I pull them all out and pull them back in with the new wires. I think 1/2 inch conduit might be able to handle 6 wires, depends on the gauge I guess. If it's 3/4 inch, then it'll probably be a little easier, but I imagine the wires still getting all tangled will be a pain in the ass without removing it all together, and then adding it back in all together.
I'm not sure what the distance is, but with at least one 90 degree angle, and likely a second, and maybe a third if they were moronic, I imagine the distance to be somewhere around 12 feet. And I gotta do it twice.
Think fish tape will be the best option for just adding new 2 wires only? Or just pulling them all out, and then pulling all the wires back in with the new ones? Or would replacing them with Romex be easier, or will the two Romex cables even fit if we assume it's the smaller 1/2 inch conduit?
Find the other end of one of the wires already in the conduit. Attach 3 new wires to that wire. Then pull that 1 wire out, it will pull the 3 new wires through the conduit. Then you'll have 1 new wire to take the place of the 1 existing wire you pulled out, plus the 2 other new wires you needed. Might work if the conduit isn't already too crowded for the number of wires.
what size conduit? what type of pipe? what size are the wires?
if its 1/2" EMT conduit and #14 gauge wires.... you can fit 12 wires in this pipe. pulling them thru is another story but 12 is the max allowed for #14 gauge solid copper
3/4" EMT pipe would be 22 wires of #14 gauge
I doubt you would be using #12 if its for lighting so I wont include those calculations. enjoy!
oh I forgot, if you pull #12 gauge into 1/2" EMT that maximum is 9. forgot this just in case.
I haven't measured it yet, especially since the other people I live with don't trust me enough to not burn the house down, probably since I've never done any wiring before, and 3 way switches are probably alien technology to them. Hopefully I can convince them. (It's mostly just one person.)
>It's in metal conduit ffs, that shit's not flammable. 3-ways aren't even complicated enough to frick it up that badly. >:(
But whatever this is, I imagine it to be pretty much whatever they usually use, whatever that'll end up being. Everything I've seen looks mostly the same, and my house looks the same too. It looks like it's probably 14 gauge, and I think the conduit looks about a 1/2 inch. It might be 3/4 inch, but if you're saying I can fit 12 #14 gauge wires in 1/2 inch... then great. 😀
there is no limit on the # of bends, HOWEVER, the total radius of ALL bends cannot exceed 360 degrees. so you can have a bunch of 10 degree offsets, a 45 degree, a 90 etc depending on the circumstances where the bend is. but they cannot exceed 360 for all bends in a single run no matter what. doubt that would be your situation, but if they exceeded the max bend radius per run then yes they are moronic.
im glad you took time to post this. what the frick would we ever do without your superior knowledge
>what the frick would we ever do without your superior knowledge
Continue using incorrect terms?
Face it anon you got helpfully served
>there is no limit on the # of bends, HOWEVER, the total radius of ALL bends cannot exceed 360 degrees.
Without a conduit body or box.
>they cannot exceed 360 for all bends in a single run no matter what.
>Without a conduit body or box.
why not? They make a tight loop under stress?
>why not? They make a tight loop under stress?
You can't have more than 360 degrees of bends without some conduit box or box so that you can actually pull the wire through the bends. After that body or box, you could have another 360 degrees of total bends then a box, then so on and so forth.
why would this matter, especially with lube? Don't we use belt/cable constructions like this all the time in mechanical systems? What makes 360 degrees magically a clamp?
>why would this matter, especially with lube? Don't we use belt/cable constructions like this all the time in mechanical systems?
Anything you can put in conduit has a maximum pull force rating. It's as low as 25 lbs for Category cable.
>What makes 360 degrees magically a clamp?
It's whatever the buttholes on the NEC committee decided. I don't know if they considered other things like conduit fill in concert with the maximum bend before access requirement. As
said:
>use bigger conduit, forget the rated fill rate, thats a pipe dream, no sane person will pull 12 wires through half inch conduit
Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
So it really is a combination of "cable might snap" and "let's guess at something well-within the margin of safety" just like every other standard. ofc
>So it really is a combination of "cable might snap" and "let's guess at something well-within the margin of safety" just like every other standard. ofc
The NEC is authored by the NFPA. The whole point of the Code is to avoid fire. Of course they are going to err on the side of safety. Look at the latest requirements for AFCI/GFCI for almost everything.
>What makes 360 degrees magically a clamp?
They gotta put a limit somewhere, I mean imagine trying to pull a wire through 1,440 degrees of bends. The higher number of degrees, the harder it'll gradually get. They decided to make it stop at 360 while it's still relativity easy.
my trig class tells me that CCW bends are positive and that CW bends are negative therefore you just balance them out.
>CCW bends are positive and that CW bends are negative
Nothing to do with pulling wire. The side force against the inside of the conduit curve (which is what produces the friction) doesn't care which way the conduit turns.
yes it does. it only gets friction when the cable is turned against it. The opposite ones would just slip
You're moronic and wrong.
what in the everliving frick am I reading here? please forget life, you are an idiot
You can't put small enough subsequent bends in conduit to have it not turned against it and have it go where you want it. If there's angles there's always gonna be friction. Maybe they were talking about making the friction marginally less, but I don't think you really understood whatever they were talking about.
try it and report back, bend friction adds up quick especially if you are close to the packing limit
google capstan equasion
any bend introduces friction and this shit goes up exponencially with the angle regardless of materials used
When we used to pull big SER wire through conduit sometimes it came oiled. Most of the time I would put some sort of non corrosive oil on the cable, not sure if electrical code allows it, but frick let the inspector try to pull that donkey dick through 70 feet of conduit.
>not sure if electrical code allows it
Cable pulling lubrication is only code compliant if it's been tested and certified per IEEE Standard 1210. This being the case, most things people might use that aren't specifically marketed as "conduit/cable lubrication" products wouldn't technically code compliant since they probably haven't been tested against the standard, even if they might be perfectly fine to use.
>This being the case, most things people might use that aren't specifically marketed as "conduit/cable lubrication" products wouldn't technically code compliant since they probably haven't been tested against the standard, even if they might be perfectly fine to use.
Does that mean I can use KY Jelly?
Pic related.
We used to use canola oil lmao maybe it dissolves the 3 phase gigga homie cable insulation but not my problem haha
Imagine the smell
>tfw people think the smell in McDonald's is from the food...
then enlighten us
It's the cooking oil lubed wires, m8.
Why are you still using steel conduit lol
Because that's what's there, dumbass.
This
Also, I prefer conduit regardless. I'm from the Chicago area, and I'm not an electrician, so I don't know how different it'll be in most other areas, but apparently they need to use conduit here. I remember the first time I've seen Romex haphazardly layed through holes drilled through 2X4s along with those plastic junction boxes. I thought it looked atrocious and unsafe, but apparently that's normal. I swear, every carpentry video has this shit and it just seems so alien to me. But where I'm from every house I've seen has metal conduit. Might as well keep using it and keep the fireproofing rating up.
>I'm from the Chicago area, and I'm not an electrician, so I don't know how different it'll be
Chicago area is the only place in the entire country that requires solid conduit. If anyone's ever talking about conduit you know where they are and that's why everyone else always acts so confused.
I figured.
The first time I had ever seen renovation videos, I was wondering why the wiring looked so shotty. I didn't even know they made junction boxes out of plastic before that point. But apparently haphazardly laying all your unprotected wires through the walls hasn't caused enough problems for people to be more aware of the potential faults of doing it like this, so I guess it's whatever...
I still think it's superior for fireproofing though, I mean unless it can somehow melt through the metal, I think an electrical issue is less likely to cause a fire. I imagine that's probably why they require it. I'm pretty sure wiring insulation isn't usually very flammable, and I imagine that if there was an issue, a fire wouldn't really be able to start inside metal conduit. The insulation isn't very flammable, and even if a flame did get going, it would burn out fairly quickly because of the oxygen feeding the flame inside the conduit getting starved. And besides the insulation, everything else in there is metal. There's not really anything that can catch fire in there, and the conduit will keep it all contained anyway. The most you would ever have happening is the insulation melting and the exposed wiring making contact with the *grounded* conduit and tripping a breaker. If a device is wired incorrectly, that's a little different since things like outlets and switches and ceiling fans and stuff like that aren't completely inside of the conduit and could catch a fire. It's still always important to check your wiring, and conduit will also protect the wires from any external forces. I've seen people just carelessly shove sawzalls into walls without knowing what's behind there. At least you'd know if you'd hit the conduit, and if it cut through and hit a wire, It'll likely just short out on the grounded conduit and trip a breaker if they haven't turned the power off. Imagine hitting an unprotected wire, especially multiple phases. Could catch the wall on fire.
>Chicago guy brainwashed that if you don't waste 7x as long making conduit as just laying Romex as everyone else has done for the last 70 years because its specifically an all in one product and Chicago is an outdated schizo abnormality that refuses to change then its dangerous
Lol
A lack of conduit also makes it difficult if you wanna add wires cause you can't really pull it through angles in wood, and then it makes you wanna die whenever you realize the wiring is fricked up and you gotta fix it, and then they complain that you need to cut holes in their walls to make it work correctly.
>I still think it's superior for fireproofing though, I mean unless it can somehow melt through the metal, I think an electrical issue is less likely to cause a fire. I imagine that's probably why they require it.
NM-B is a collection of 90 °C conductors that are purposefully derated to 60 °C. I have some of the earliest NM ever used in my 1957 house, and the conductor insulation is fine. The fire risk is trivial. The whole point of the NEC is fire protection. Conduit is only useful for physical protection. Anything else is political.
>Conduit is only useful for physical protection. Anything else is political.
the frick does politics have to do with determining safety measures with electrical, or the NEC? you are a moron
The requirement of EMT conduit in all structures in Chicago is political, you numpty. If there was a statistically significant difference between residences in Chicago and the rest of the country, you can bet your ass the NEC would rush to adopt it nationwide. Just look at the AFCI debacle right now. It adds thousands and thousands of dollars to installations everywhere to save three lives a year.
>The requirement of EMT conduit in all structures in Chicago is political
well thats one city out of the entire country. the way you said it before was that it was political everywhere. you need to be more clear next time tardo
>can’t follow context in a conversation
>dont care really
If you didn't care you wouldn't keep replying.
Yes I would.
I believe New York requires conduit in every structure also. not 100% on that heard it from someone who lived there.
New York state, or just New York City?
dunno. google it moron
We understand what the rule is, he's not asking about that. He's asking WHY is that the rule. Like what undesirable thing is happening at 360 degrees of total bends that's not happening at 345 degrees of total bends?
>so that you can actually pull the wire through the bends.
That's why it's a rule.
use bigger conduit, forget the rated fill rate, thats a pipe dream, no sane person will pull 12 wires through half inch conduit
>pipe dream
see what you did there, homosexual
Just be yourself
>Told to just be myself.
>Millions have died.
dont exceed conduit fill, check informative annex C assuming you know the size of the conduit, type of conduit, and all of the wires are the same type and size. if not, calculate conduit fill.
then you have to derate the circuits per article 310.15(C)(1), so find out how many conductors total, what type they are, and start at 310.16 and derate from there.
or you can run another conduit, or AC/MC cable, or any other acceptable wiring method.
also, having more than 360 degrees worth of bends in one run not only makes it near impossible to pull through, but it also is a code violation. depending on what kind of raceway it is, reference the article in chapter 3, but it is usually .26 of that article for conduit (so 358.26 would be for the amount of bends in EMT in a single run)
>conduit fill
>and then derate
>so you can do conduit fill calculations a second time for the thicker wire
I take it you're strictly hourly.
I forgot I made this thread, I came back and it's like wtf, lol.