Hi all,

So far me and the other tech have been lucky to not walk in some cieling areas that are solid yes to week to hold a person to run cable. In one instance our supervisor who is small and light could but I want this to be a one man operation.

I have thought of two ways to run cable besides the standard use of fiberglass sticks.

1. Run a remote control car with tracks across the ceiling from one end to the other. The cable would lay across the sheetrock.

Other would be to run a wireless remote control 3 or four prop toy like probe though the rafters draging the string with it. The blades of the little drone would be protected with a duscted shroud.

We have excepted a contract with a resteraunt chain where there is only one acess man hole and thought it would have been impossible to run the cable. The building construction has little in the name of conduit.

So what is your thoughts on this? I love the idea of running a remote control 4 prop helicopter if it was possible. It would be battery operated and just enough to pull the cable a given range before being brought down to recharge?

What's holding the sheetrock up? :shrug:

So what is your thoughts on this?

Please don't take this the wrong way but with questions like this you would be wise to hire someone to install the wire for you. There are even more questions that you haven't thought of yet.

So what is your thoughts on this?

Two words- trained cat. Doesn't use batteries and if there are any mice he'll take care of them too. (Extra charge of course. )

-Hal

Fiberglass rods work will for this situation or they also make a sling shot that will shoot small ball with string attached if its not to many cables you maybe able to get away with the remote car

I like Hals idea

I've used a wrist-rocket (Slingshot) and a tennis-ball before with great success in small crawl spaces. Plus it's fun

Take a knife and cut a hole on two sides of the tennis ball, take your pull string and pull it through and tie it off.

Cheaper then fiberglass sticks and easier to work with in confined spaces. Works great for lacing cable through rafters.

Not to mention you can have some real fun with a dog

I deleted the two post on spelling errors, they added nothing to the topic. I was serious when I asked what's holding the sheetrock up, has to be some type of rafter or framing up there.

Crappie rod from your local fishing store. They are fiberglass and extend to 20 feet on average. they dont flex as much as stix and compress down to 3.5 feet.

Problem: they will not bend corners like a remote.

Sometimes called a pan fish pole or fly rod. Happy hunting.

Ive got a earlier version of this , works great

A small cross bow works too.

I've seen this kind of ceilings in a mall. It is actually not sheetrock and there is a metal lath that is spaced about 2 ft apart. Kind of like a plaster wall. You can crawl on the stuff I've seen if you use a piece of 1/2 inch plywood to spread the load or if you stay tight to a wall.

cracker,

I would call it a latice of thin sheet metal hooked to wires suspended from the ceiling that hold the sheet rock up but thats about it. I like the idea of the cross bow. Thought of that the other night. We had a small opening in the other end of the sheet rock that was barly long enough to streath out fiberglass rods...but barly to the other side.

I told the other tech that he would feed me one end of the rods and I would take a second set with some electrical tape looped around the end like a coboys lasso so it push the open end around the other set being pushed in my direction. Then would wist my end closing the end of the loop of electrical tape and pull all of the rods my way. worked. But unless you have two people and steady hands wont work.

Rc car would also work heheh no need to drop so many ceiling panels to feet cable across vast streatches of ceiling area. Even better if it had a camera and you had a head piece once it rounded a corner

I'd be worried about a cross-bow stabbing something it's not supposed to, like ductwork, light fixture, pipes, your assistant.

They make a small spring-loaded "gun" that they sell at home depot that has 6" glow in the dark plastic darts. The bottom of it has a fishing-reel hooked to it. Seems like a good idea but not sure how well it would work.

I couldn't see an RC car working with 6" fiberglass layed on top of the grid. Even if you got one with tracks I think it would just sink down in it and get caught up in the insulation.

Unless your talking a big one that weighs like 20-pounds...

I would call it a latice of thin sheet metal hooked to wires suspended from the ceiling that hold the sheet rock up

Sounds like metal channel hung from the old ceiling or structure with the sheetrock screwed to it. It's the usual way to construct a dropped commercial sheetrock ceiling. There is always limited access (if any) to the space above via access panels. Can't have them every few feet.

I certainly wouldn't call this "frail" just because you are not familiar with it. It's on par with any ceiling grid system. No, it can't be walked on unless you want to fall through.

I would suggest that you try to learn something about construction if you are going to be running cables in buildings.

-Hal

LOL! My little fellow would probably take the job -- Every time I open the hatch to the attic he appears at the bottom of the ladder and tries to get up there!

I've never seen a suspended grid with sheet rock attached to it.

I do as many have said with the sticks etc. What I use in suspended ceiling I have a wood closet rod about 5 inches long that I wrap my string around. I just pull off what string I need and put a half hitch around the rest, I can throw it pretty far, if I have the room. My sticks are the fiber glass rods for cleaning chimneys and they work well and if I have the room I have some old Telco lay-up sticks that beat anything else.

The question that has not been asked is how far is the span. Ultimately if its beyond any reasonable length or has blind turns, the only way to make this happen, safely, is to periodically cutout the ceiling, neatly, at manageable distances. Obviously, this needs to be conveyed to the customer, hence they will need to hire a drywall/painting company to come and finish up the job.

edit for spelling. opps

rustynails. That is exactly the point. I was working with another employee showing me the needed steps to do the work including backboard installation and termination but he was always late always unreliable and it was affecting my income. We are paid by the job site. We show up late we cannot work into the dinner time where the resteraunt ask us to leave. So
now I am working on my own. Just wanted to see what was best to string cable long distances and around blind corners.

Here is one possible replacement for your untrusty sidekick:
https://www.lsdinc.com/content/product_details/66

Poke around that site you should be able to find a lot of useful things to make running cable by yourself easier.

hbis,

Thought of the idea of a cat to pull string. I would of course have to find a way to make the string break in the event he is caught up on something and cannot pull it loose. Cute idea though. I would worry a little bit about the mouse traps that I do some times see in those areas. Now the question has anyone here used a cat to run string before? Has one fallen though the ceiling before?

I have always wanted to get a little monkey, one of the ones you can hold in your hand. They seem pretty smart and trainable...

:rofl: :rofl:

You guys are killin me, I realize messing with a newbie is fun and all but its time to get a little serious. Surdel works for a CG company and it seems that they are doing more and more wiring work.

My advice for the moment is DONT turn blind corners (cables rub), DONT let the cabling lay on the grid (ballasts and lighting) and DONT make your company and our trade look like a bunch of morons. Do the job correctly and your experience will keep you employed for many years to come.

Hal is correct it sound like a standard drop. I have done many of them. Make cut-in's like mentioned before. Hang your wiring if there are grid wires attach some hooks to them and use the space. If it takes longer then bid more time.

Last but not least you spoke before about getting certified by crisco and some others. While you are at it get cable vendor certified or at least trained. So that you don’t break any codes or regulations regarding low voltage wiring.

Don’t take my advice as if I am hammering on you please. That was not the intent. I would like to see others regard our trade as PROFFESIONAL and not some bunch of "monkeys" working in an office space

Ok, seriously now. This kind of work is done every day. A CG is not "our trade" otherwise he would know how to do this and wouldn't be dreaming about remote controlled cars and such. The fact that he or his company took on this contract with little knowledge of how to do the work, the codes involved and insufficient manpower speaks for itself.

This is what we have become accustomed to from CGs and it's one reason we complain about them all the time. Best advice I can give is to stick to what you do best and leave the rest to the professionals who know how to handle it.

-Hal

So far, unless I am mistaken, I have not seen the words "fiberglass snake, made by Greenlee" in any of the postings.

And I admire Hal for his forthright attitude, in trying to explain to the whiners, trunkers and other interlopers, that this is a business, and we are not amused when others, with no idea of what we do and how we do it, try to muscle in.

In Surdel's defense I have never seen a suspended drywall ceiling, and I thought I'd seen it all.
As far as the cat goes, I had a customers cat get up in a standard drop tile ceiling, never could get it down, just told the customer and left. But I don't see the cat working very well, now a ferrite on the other hand should work out OK

"...now a ferrite on the other hand..."

Only if you are using magnetic wire. Haha.

Love my fiberglass snake!

In Surdel's defense I have never seen a suspended drywall ceiling...

You guarantee HAVE seen them, you just haven't had to run wire within one so you never realized what it was.

-Hal

i was brought in as a helper on a cabling job at a car dealer. it was a fancy one of those new standard corporate look big brand car dealers. anyways the building was 35 years old and was a butler modular building that got a face lift, the old saying you can polish a turd all you want, its still a turd. well the showroom had new floors and all but the ceiling (sheetrock)looked great, we cut a couple of access traps in the sheetrock only to discover they left the old t-bar grid in place. they then removed 1 out of every 4 tiles, replaced them with 2x4 sheets of plywood. that gave them somthing to screw the sheetrock into. Now remember all that was holding the sheetrock ceiling up was the old T bar ceiling, they even left old lights and tiles up there, we cabled it to the best of our abilities, all the while scared this monstrosity would come crashing down. 6 months later on a weekend (dealers are closed here on weekends) part of the ceiling landed on the floor

I bought a Greenlee Cable Caster for on of my guys, he seems to like it... I'm sure he has tried it for real fishing too. I paid around $40 for it.

web page

I have a greenlee wire snake. So far have rarely used it in these installs in the resteraunts. I am a bit amazed at how cheaply some of the electrical work has been done. Even came across a major thick power cable cable tied to a steel stud.

BC for the last few years has had some of the biggest construction projects in its history with billions pooring into the economy for these projects. Would not suprise me with contractors doing quick and cheap work because for one thing BC has never invested in new tradmen to replace the mass exodus of workers that are about to retire and suddenly in the last 2-3 years we are going to be short of workers. On top of this the olympics are agravating the problem.

BTW why is there not a discussion group on company politics, trends, work condions ect? I have yet to get 40 hours of work per week from this company because of the odd issues that come up such as limited access to the office or warehouse for parts. I am paid by per install. This is not a regular 9-5 job. I am almost contemplating working for another company that is more organized.

Hmmm....
Monkeys? I thought that was what young kids were for! Send my 6 year old up ( or in really tight crawl spaces )They think it's neat. And working the Hilte gun is so cool to them.

Just joking of course.

I did use a remote control car 1 time.
I had to get a cable out to a pedastal at a pool.
The only feasable way was to go under the pool. We crawled through the concreate air ducts until we got to a litlle 1X2 duct. tied the string on and sent the care 100' down the duct. there was a vent that open up about 5 feet away from where we needed to end up. Ran conduit from the vent opening to the pedastal and all was well.

Naturally we ran Plenum, I tied an extra string onto the car to pull it back when done, and fishing down the vent took a lot of patience, skill and luck (we were at least 5 feet underground and the vent was 3"X8")

When you run in a cieling space the National electric code states that the Cbale must be installed so that it is not laying on a suspended cieling and supported every 4 feet (the hangers for the suspended cieling does not count as a mounting point.)

You are installing cable, you might get away with using a RC car to run the span, but think if you were running sprinkler pipe. You would have to support that and it doesn't get pulled in like cable, and therefore access points would have to be cut. Why is it OK for one profession to make any cuts they need but you can't?

Have you considered running conduit or wiremold across the cieling?

WE cannot run conduit as if we include that in the bid then we loose the contract to another company. So far I have seen new construction with some cable suspended in free air. We are in canada so dont know what you mean by national electrical code. I am assuming that is in the states?

Yes, NEC is for the US but there has to be electrical codes in Canada..

yeah we have in our electrical codes one huge cool one. Our breaker boxen have to have 2 compartments to make sure when the main breakers are powered down everything in the distribution part is de energized, american boxen are not like that

That is a good idea...

The Canadian Electrical Code (CSA) is very much like the US NEC, in many cases even more strict. It most certainly contains sections applicable to what you are trying to accomplish.

I guess this is yet something else that you have never heard of.

I am almost contemplating working for another company that is more organized.

I would suggest working for a company that employs people who know what they are doing rather than trunk slammers. You might learn how to do your job from them.

-Hal

also things have to be CSA approved as well as UL approved. CSA has slightly higher standards. and we have to be careful, example:american circuit breakers that cause a fire and are not CSA approved will nullify your insurance policy

Just a couple of minor corrections. Our electrical code is the CEC, or Canadian Electrical Code. Each province has it's own amendments to the CEC.

The CSA is the Canadian Standards Association. In Canada we can use products that have the CSA stamp as well as the stamp of Underwriters Laboratories of Canada, C-UL. Some products carry both stamps.

In British Columbia we have a Lo-Voltage limited electrical ticket for low voltage cable installers. Low voltage cabling must be undertaken by someone who holds the Lo-Voltage certification, or someone working under the supervision of someone who holds the certification.

Surdel: I know from your PMs that you are serious about wanting to work in this industry, and wanting to learn how to do the job properly. Unfortunately I think you are finding your way into companies who are capitalizing on a booming economy and hiring anyone willing to call themselves a technician. You won't learn anything but bad habits where you are now, and you will probably give up on the industry completely. There are legit companies out there who will hire someone looking to be trained. You just have to look a little harder. Find some interconnects in your area, put in a resume, be honest about your skill level and your enthusiasm. Don't wait to see a help wanted ad either, just get your resume out there.

Of course there's also the option to take more schooling. I know of a college in Kelowna with a great program.

Ahh, yes. The CSA is like UL- both are testing organizations. I wasn't sure what the Canadian Electrical Code was called. CEC certainly makes sense. :sleep:

-Hal