Hi all
A question for the Electricians out there.
I need to splice a #2 wire together.
Basically. a 150 ft length of #2 copper wire was cut by a backhoe by accident.
Yes, the power was off and the wire wasn’t where it was supposed to be, but at least someone knew this might happen.
I’ve put in a new pull box and got everything ready to connect.
But, I’ve never spliced a wire this large.
Usually, I can wire nut a splice in wires (12, 10, and 8), but what about something this big.
Do I need a special splice or can I use those copper nuts and tape it?
The box is above ground and dry, everything in conduit (which I also fixed).
I keep the copper nuts around for grounding normally.
Anyone have the answer off hand.
Jeff
Replies
>>Anyone have the answer off hand.
As it must be getting pretty cool up there about now - how about moving south? {G}
BTW, how's the new Tunbridge covered bridge doing?
_______________________
Tool Donations Sought
I'm matching tool donors to a church mission to Haiti - we're shipping a bus converted to a medical facility in January (we hope) and can fill it with clothes, tools and all sorts of stuff needed in that poorest of all countries. A few hand tools or power tools can provide a livelihood for an otherwise destitute family. Please email me if you have tools to donate.
Thanks to Jeff and David and Jim for their offers!
Bob
Cold is the word, usually between 0 and 10 degrees.
Makes me feel awful when it's this cold and I have to work outdoors.
My dogs love it. They hate the heat.
Just shoveled the next 10 inches from my walkway today, what a pain.
My parents and brother live in Florida, so I know how hot it can be there.
As for the Bridge, no idea. I hardly ever get near it.
Jeff
My choice would be any of the preinsulated splice blocks available at any decent electrical supply house. Simple and quick to use and relatively inexpensive. You could, if you wish to go old school, use a set of split bolts.
These you would have to fill, pad and insulate with thick rubber tape, possibly some insulating putty and a good quality electrical tape, given your temps and conditions Super 33+ would be my choice, after making the mechanical connection. Not a difficult job once you have done one or two but it can be complicated and a bit fiddly laying on your belly, a piece of plywood or carpet foam makes this more comfortable, on cold and wet ground.
The trick is filling all voids, otherwise they draw in moisture as they breath, pad all points and edges, not good if a sharp point comes through the insulation from the inside, and apply the insulating tape evenly so every portion gets an even thickness. Something close to an eighth of an inch is good.
I regularly use split bolts just for the fun, electrician games, but the splice blocks are quick and quite good if not quite as flexible.
One brand of splice blocks: http://www.nsipolaris.com/products/tpl2003/a/a-2.pdf
Edited to add link.
Edited 12/15/2003 6:52:48 PM ET by 4Lorn1
How about soldering this with a copper tip attachment on a propane torch? Then knock off any sharp points and tape well with super 33+? That's an even older old school approach, I'm not sure if code still allows it.
The other interesting point given that this was cut by a backhoe is making sure that he gets the legs/phases, and especially the neutral, correctly identified....
-- J.S.
I would argue against depending on solder if the wire in question happens to be a ground wire. Reportedly, ground wires can overheat when shunting a large current to ground and will melt the solder, causing a dangerous open. However, while you don't say, I suspect that the #2 is not an equipment grounding conductor. Nevertheless, since told about the possibility of melting out the solder in an equipment grounding conductor, I no longer use solder as the primary means for connecting any conductor and use some type of positive, mechanical fastener such as the split bolt. And as an old time electronics tech, I used to use quite a bit of rosen core solder.
John
I don't like soldering high power wires, don't ask why, just a feeling.
I solder alot of low power wires, so that's not a problem.
I brought up the pull box above ground to the side of a building, figured it would be better.
I also tested each wire for continuity and marked them all with colored tape.
I didn't want any surprises when I fixed things.
Thank you for the help.
Jeff
Solder is not allowed as a mechanical connection per NEC. But you knew that.
Lugs or split bolts, bugs, much better electrical connection. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that this is a single phase residential feeder. Phase wouldn't matter. Neutral typically is a smaller wire size. If not I would think he is skilled enough to ring it out to get it right if it is not a different size.
Typically if the sizes were the same, even in a three phases setting, I would just hook them up and keep the main off. Easy enough to check rotation by bumping a motor jumped off the main. Usually don't even make the connections just use a couple of #12 jumpers. If rotation is right I'm all set. If not easy enough to switch two leads.
The other thing is that seeing as that a backhoe broke it it is a good chance he will need to do the splices twice. Also a chance the lines jerked up and/or down the line. Especially where sweeps were not used on a direct burial installation I have seen the lines damaged. More than once flames have shot up stubs. So maybe I should have told him to ring everything out before assuming a simple splice, or two, will do it.
wish to go old school... I like that!; so,
Braze it and pour the box full of hot tar!
My utility uses compression fittings, with heat shrink tubing and electrical tape over that. DAMHIKT
The compression fitting and pressed in place very tightly hydraulically, i guess you could rent that. Also use a corrosion inhibitor if it's aluminum wire.
I would check a good electrical supply house (read: not home despot) and see what they have. Otherwise check out 3M online.
I would definitely not go old school. There's a reason it's old school, newer methods are better and more reliable.
Edited 12/15/2003 10:48:18 PM ET by NDMatt
Lorn
The Feed is to a Sub-panel in another building.
No problem with Phases.
I already figured out the backhoe ripped the wires up and replaced the bad side and cleaned up the mess.
Yes I did test all the wires to be safe.
Ground wire was obvious, repaired it already.
I could have fixed the conduit and repulled new wires, but I figured it was easier to just put in a pull box and fix as needed.
I wasn't sure about the splices, as i usually never splice big wires.
Thank you again
Jeff
It used to be that we were allowed to twist, solder, and tape on branch circuits. I thought that went away just because it was more work and nobody did it any more. Does code forbid it now?
The twisting in that case is the mechanical connection, the solder just increases the area of electrical contact and seals the joint against corrosion. Of course twisting is a better mechanical connection for #12 than it would be for #2.
Spider box lugs are still soldered, just like they were 80 years ago. But that's not covered by building codes, it being more like the 4/0 version of an extension cord. I've never heard of anybody having one melt out.
-- J.S.
As I understand it, I looked it up just to make sure, you are absolutely correct. While seldom used anymore, you can use solder as long as it is not depended on for the mechanical connection. I once saw the old twist, boy did the twist for a long way, solder and wrap job done. Saw it once, I was pretty young, and then it was declared obsolete.
They used a plumbers solder ladle over a gas burner. The connections were hung down vertically and dipped into the liquid solder. The helper wore big fluffy white mitts and a worried look as he held the solder pot over his head. I suppose there were a few electricians with non-testosterone induced bald spots.
Can' t remember if these were bent over and then taped, some were, or just trimmed square and insulated. Even that was a two step procedure with rubber tape followed by Bulldog brand friction tape to protect the delicate rubber insulation.
Later, as an electrician doing old work, I sometimes have to deal with these joints. Many are as smooth and shiny as the day they were soldered. These have to be cut out if I don't want to have to get a torch. A problem because these boxes are usually short wired to begin with.
You also have to love the tiny, two and a half inches I think, metal boxes common to the period. People round here have come to call them biscuit boxes because of their relative size. Two or three cables into one of these, short wired and soldered, I guess wire fill was less an issue back then, makes for a start of a fun day.
Others seem to have had the solder a bit too cold as they are classic cold joints with the joint rough, crumbly and poorly bonded to the copper conductors. These you can often part the connection by just unwinding it.
Spider box, 4/0. Hmm. I had pictured it as something much smaller. Must be a local terminology likely for something I know under a different name. Any chance you can post a picture? If you don' t have a digital camera perhaps you could find a picture on-line and copy it or post the link.
The pictures are kinda small, but here are the current lug-type spider boxes:
http://extranet.mole.com/public/index.cgi?cmd=view_category&parent=-1899-1950-1951-1979&id=1987
When I started, they were wooden boxes with copper bars under rubber flaps, and you just used a small crescent wrench on the lugs. Then OSHA came along and forced the plexiglass boxes with special holes for the special insulated wrench.
The lugs are still the same except for the special allen bolt instead of the old square head. You still just stick the wire into a solder cup on the back of the lug, like a D-sub or XLR connector on a grand scale.
-- J.S.
The pre OSHA versions sound like they could, if you were to get just a bit careless distracted, ruin your whole day. Hate, maybe love (These cases are sooo confusing.), to try to work one live in the rain.
Can't say I have seen anything quite like that before. Reminds me of some of the old, 1910 to 40s, industrial buss bar systems. Before dead fronts became a universally accepted 'good idea'. It was getting expensive burying the electricians.
Is this something mostly used in theater lighting or are they used other places as well?
These are used in motion picture lighting. 50 ft. of 4/0 with lugs is the standard unit, it's about as much copper (weight) as one man can safely handle if you're going to be rigging all day long.
Typically you might see 4-6 parallel runs of 4/0 for each hot and 2-3 for the neutral. To keep the jenny and its noise out of the way, you may have to run 2 - 300 feet of this. The gaffer has a guy assigned to nothing but making sure that the loads are properly balanced and all the distribution stuff is OK. This job is called "best boy".
-- J.S.
I was licensed in Arizona in 1979, kept it going until about 1990, when I went looking for indoor work. Now, newly retired, I am looking to get a license in North Carolina, figuring to pick and choose which jobs I accept. So I'm going to have to take the test again. I'm going to use this forum as a seminar, along with the 2002 edition on my desk. Which brings me to my question.
As I remember the article, it said, "connections...depending upon the use of solder shall not be made." And dammit, now I can't find it! Help? Were is it?
Try, from the NEC 2002:
Article 110.14 (B).
Thank you. I should have kept on reading, I did look at 110.12. Has wording changed? Or am I getting too old?
Looked in my 1993 NEC and the wording is very close to the 2002 version.
I think it was the 1972 I had word perfect. Well enough that when I went to get my own license in '79, the lady at the desk, who is for some reason forbiden to tell us how well we did on the test in AZ, don't ask me why, said, "Well, no point in retesting You!"
That's what I needed to know.
I wasn't sure if a ready made splice block was available.
Split bolts, that's the name of the copper bolts I was talking about, but couldn't remember the proper name.
I'll just pick up the proper item from the supply house.
Thank you
Jeff
My electrician sold me some splice deals for 00 wire that had a strange kind of silicon encased in a little plastic box that opened up with a split bolt connector inside.
You could put your finger in the silicon and it would stick to the finger then snap back to original shape if you pulled. I torqued the nuts down tight, closed up the box, and the silicon gooshed out the ends, over the wire. These are spec'd for direct burial, which is what I did.
Really? I havn't seen those yet. I have not been doing electrical work for quite a while, and now I want to get back into it part time to help in my old age. So I keep running into new and nifty products.
He said the poco (Tri-County in SE MN) uses them all the time, he had only had them for a little while...he usually uses a big crimper.
Sorry, went offline for a while. When I was doing elec. full time there were "underground splice kits" --It was a plastic box, three wire nuts, and a double bag of two parts of an epoxy, with the division between the two parts weaker than the rest of the envelope. I'm so old I can remember when margerine came the same way(to add the color, so it didn't look like you were eating plastic). They were a pain in the tail t use, but when you were done, you had a splice that would never get wet.
It makes sense that someone started making them for all sizes of wire.
For you yung'uns who don't remember the white margarine with the little color tabs, that was during WWII and for some time after. Seems the dairy lobby didn't want people to think that the cheap upstart margarine was a real substitute for butter, so they got a law passed that colored margarine couldn't be sold. So the margarine makers created a flexible package for the white margarine with a little dollup of yellow in a separate package that you schmushed around until the margarine was more-or-less yellow (usually somewhat yellow stripped). Women didn't want it to appear that they were serving the cheap stuff, so they usually got the kids to schmush the margarine so it looked like butter so their friends wouldn't know - of course their friends were doing the same thing... Don't know when the margarine lobby finally was able to get things so colored margarine could be sold.
Yea. You must be as old as I am, or older. I'm 62, and just retired