[TowerTalk] irrigation tube as conduit

[Patrick Greenlee]

There have been varying reports regarding success using the drip 
irrigation tubing as conduit.  I had read of failures and problems but 
decided to try for myself and succeeded. Subsequently I received email 
from others who had enjoyed success.

The drip tubing is a "neutral lay" and should be unrolled like a winch 
cable and not taken from the roll like an open face spinning reel.  This 
will avoid numerous kinks.  My tubing came in 100 ft lengths.  I 
attached the end of the tubing to a fixed object with a pair of Vice 
Grip pliers as I didn't have a second person to assist me. I then 
unrolled the tubing and when unrolled clamped a second pair of Vice 
Grips to the other end to hold the tubing in its unrolled position.  It 
was a nice warm sunny day and the black tubing soon warmed up and lost 
much of its tendency to try to coil back up. Had it been cooler out I 
could have used a heat gun to warm the tubing enough to relax it a bit.  
Note:  The tubing still has a slight tendency to roll up but not enough 
to be a problem.

Next I ran an electrician's fish tape through the tubing, an easy task. 
( http://electrical.about.com/od/electricaltools/a/fishtape.htm )

I used the fish tape to pull a small polypropylene 3 strand rope through 
the tubing. The rope was about 3/8 to 7/16 of on inch in diameter but 
the exact specs are not important.  I would not recommend larger than 
1/2 inch in a 3/4 inch ID irrigation tubing. I then attached my wires (6 
separate insulated conductors) to the rope.  There are several ways to 
attach the wire to the rope. Avoid making a bulge that will be hard to 
pull through the tubing.  I staggered my wires to avoid a big lump.  I 
wove the wires through the strands of the rope a few times and secured 
it with copious wraps of vinyl electrical tape.  I pulled the rope to 
drag the wire through the tubing.  It was pretty easy. Although I had a 
quart bottle of wire puling lubricant at the ready it was not needed.

I did place an axle through the rolls of wire I was pulling and placed 
the rolls a few feet from the entry end of the tubing.  For the first 
pull I had a helper monitor the wire at the entry end of the tubing.  
This was not required as it went very well without intervention and I 
did the rest by myself.

I made three of these 100 ft pulls. For a single roll of tubing 100 
meters in length, the pulling will be harder and may require wire 
pulling lubricant but from my experience I think I could pull 100 meter 
lengths of wire through the irrigation tubing.

I have not spliced any of this tubing but suspect that the end of one 
piece could be flared when heated a bit such that you could place one 
tube inside the other for maybe 4 inches or so and use a glue 
recommended for this material or else silicon rubber (RTV.)
  Another possibility would be to over wrap the splice with plenty of 
electrical tape and then cover with generous thickness of silicon rubber.

73,

Patrick NJ5G

On 6/11/2014 9:06 AM, Ingrid Johnson-Evavold wrote:
> Greetings.
>
> I would like to run a wire underground through irrigation tubing for 100 meters - down to an electrical fence that surrounds my honey bee colonies.  I have a question about what you ran through the tubing to then pull your wires through.  And - is there any trick to unrolling the tubing so it does not develop any kinks?  Thanks for any help you can provide!
>
> Ingrid Johnson-Evavold
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