Big day.
We need to finish the 2” feeder conduits for the inverter and generator outputs that connect the two systems together and to the whole camp.
Yesterday we had loaded everything into the Freightshaker that was needed at the generator shack, and I lit it off to build air in the pre-dawn hours.
Once at the generator shack, one of our first tasks was to extend the existing gutter that handles all the different generators and camp feeders wiring so we could add to it.
And that’s when we discovered there had been a mixup with the gutter we had ordered-we were sent an outdoor rated gutter instead of an indoor one.
Which means they won’t bolt together as the two styles are built significantly differently.
With the nearest indoor gutter a day away at best, and a tight time schedule, there was nothing to do but modify the outdoor gutter to fit.
Here’s Denise marking out where to cut the new gutter.
With a cutoff wheel, a flappy disc, and a big hammer (really), the new gutter was able to bolt up to the old.
One really cool thing that had been happening in the camp for the past 5 days that we got to see a little of was an annual training event that Az game and fish puts on for their new recruits. There were something like 50 AZG&F officers here and the few glimpses of their event we got to see was really interesting.
And it turns out they had some really good cooks along for the event and they fed us on a number of occasions, and this morning we got awesome breakfast burritos delivered right to our job site!
Nom, nom, nom!!
We got to meet and hang out with a couple of their officers here and there. Cool people.
Anyway, back to work.
We finished up the conduits, wall penetrations, and junction box work , and it was time to prepare for the wire pulls.
This would consist of sucking in a string( more on this in a second), pulling in a larger pulling rope, and pulling a rag through the conduits to make sure they were clean and don’t damage the wires.
Sucking a string. Don’t worry it’s not perverse.
For us, it involves setting up a good shop vac at one end of the conduit, and then a bucket of what’s called blow line at the other. Blow line is a very lightweight rope. I’ve used a bunch of fancy things designed to pull in the blow line-but the thing that I find works best is my homemade sandwich baggies like this.
I’ve been an electrician for about 25 years, and the process of sucking a string never ceases to amuse me, amaze me, and make me giggle every time. I’ll try and post a video of it later.
Anyway, after all that, it was wire pull time-a tall order for two people.
Cue a few more cool tools.
This is our mini tugger, and with a pulling force of up to 3000 pounds, it makes it possible for Denise and I to do this by ourselves.
At the other end of the pull, is Denise handing well over a thousand pounds of wire by herself. And while this is no easy task and a hell of a work out, it’s made possible by our wire spool jacks that support the spools and let then unwind with relative ease.
Without too much drama, we completed both wire pulls, and still had a half a day to go with termination and make up.
I’ll come back to that later, because right now( Wednesday morning) the boss is giving me that look that means I’d better get my ass out of the trailer and to work!😬😬