atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Best conduit blowing solution?

So my question, after adapting my 5 hp shop vac to a smaller hose is, now that the hose inner diameter is so small it has reduced the suction by quite a bit. Is there still enough to bring that bow-tie and line all the way through a 3/4 inch conduit? When vacuuming these lines through do they need a lot of suction or is a little bit enough? Sorry, I haven't experimented yet.

It will still work. Yes, eventually the motor will get hot and possibly cut off, but that would be in a situation where you are doing this repeatedly. I assure you that when you have it right, the line will pull through in just a few seconds. It is like riding a bike. Once you have the equipment, you'll figure out how to tweak it to get the best performance.

I have used 2 shopvacs. One with the nozzle notched to allow a string to be passed thru it set to blow, and the one at the other end set up to vaccuum. The conduits we were dealing with were under slabs and has alot of water in them, and one vac just wasn't quite enough.

In my experiences, a shop vac / baggie combo works well when there is preexisting cable. the greenlee product is the best solution i have used to date. if you purchase the accessory box you get all types of reducers and fitting to match the pipe. the most useful feature on the greenlee is the little hole you can feed the string through so you dont have to create a void in your seal when blowing. The accesooy pack also includes a felexable attachment that you can use inside of a station outlet box. greenlee cat #'s 390, 618.

A 1000 ft run of something as small as 3/4 is a hell of a run! There should be some pull boxes in there some place.

-Hal

My thoughts too Hal.

Well code says no more then 100' between pull boxes (and no more then 360 degrees of bends) - but we all know that only applies to electrical work. I've had electrical contractors install hundreds and hundreds of feet of continuous conduit for telephone "because the code doesn't cover telephone".

Sam

The runs are for security/access control, and go from perimeter areas to central where it empties into a tray. The majority of the runs are no more than 100 feet. I guess I was being too liberal in saying a thousand.