2 Part thread:521 and Splicing off a wire

[CAPT Stream Rotar]

Ok guys, sadly I have no pictures for you @ the moment because I forgot my camera today...

My goal is to get a main and wire next to a wall that will in-turn feed my drip zone that will be installed tomorrow.A few snags were hit in the process.Most I could recover from.

My first question is about the 521 locater..First off How best do you calibrate it..Today I read the instructions but couldn't seem to get it right or I put the sensor on the handset way to sensitive...I am going off a orange wire on a 7 strand that is a feed for a remote box. The location of the wire was found after some quick and easy digging/tracing...My major problem was not being able to get a certain pinpoint on the wire.. The setting on the wire Battery part was @ 4-5 during the day...

The second part of this thread asks what is the best way to come off a wire that has no slack in the ground?I found the wire and the main for my soon to be drip zone..How would you pros Properly come off it electrically? The reason why I am going to these lengths is due to the HORRIBLE DIGGING this job has.The amount of roots and rocks in this ground makes me want to call in tomorrow...Alas with my boss away, I have to install this system solo..So is the best way to come off this wire to splice it on each side about a foot apart, King nut the present connections jumping my new wire off the orange and common strands going roughly 5 feet to my new valve reducer filter ect?

It is possible I am not explaining this section of my thread right..I am very tired and sore from work today...

Thanks in advance

CSR(ED)

[Dirty Water]

Ok guys, sadly I have no pictures for you @ the moment because I forgot my camera today...

My goal is to get a main and wire next to a wall that will in-turn feed my drip zone that will be installed tomorrow.A few snags were hit in the process.Most I could recover from.

My first question is about the 521 locater..First off How best do you calibrate it..Today I read the instructions but couldn't seem to get it right or I put the sensor on the handset way to sensitive...I am going off a orange wire on a 7 strand that is a feed for a remote box. The location of the wire was found after some quick and easy digging/tracing...My major problem was not being able to get a certain pinpoint on the wire.. The setting on the wire Battery part was @ 4-5 during the day...

The second part of this thread asks what is the best way to come off a wire that has no slack in the ground?I found the wire and the main for my soon to be drip zone..How would you pros Properly come off it electrically? The reason why I am going to these lengths is due to the HORRIBLE DIGGING this job has.The amount of roots and rocks in this ground makes me want to call in tomorrow...Alas with my boss away, I have to install this system solo..So is the best way to come off this wire to splice it on each side about a foot apart, King nut the present connections jumping my new wire off the orange and common strands going roughly 5 feet to my new valve reducer filter ect?

It is possible I am not explaining this section of my thread right..I am very tired and sore from work today...

Thanks in advance

CSR(ED)

I can answer your second question.

Cut out 1' of the wire and splice (with good waterproof splices, I prefer the 3M DBY's or GelCaps) in a 2-3' scrap. One one side or another, splice in your new wire and run it to your valve. What you don't want is a lot of tension on the splice, so use a long scrap.

This is the same techniques the phone and cable co use to splice a cable drop.

I like to stick a 6' Round Valve box over each splice so it can be found at a later date, should things go south.

[Without A Drought]

try to get the signal on the locator to around 6 or 7. if it's a long run and you're losing tone, bump it up higher. problem with that is, if you have a lot of buried utilities, you'll get a lot of interference. then just follow the void

as far as splicing, dig the wire back far enough, splice in a jumper and you should be good.

i would heavily recommend DBY's. more costly, but much more reliable.

later
pg

[CAPT Stream Rotar]

Jon-Thats 100% what I was going to do..It's good to have a nice positive reinforcement backing my original idea...

PG-By saying "get the signal on the locator around 6-7, What do you exactally mean? What setting to you like to have inside the box on the battery.From what my old hoss use to say four to start and then a 5...My problem with this aspect of the locator is tweeking it to get it spot on...

[Wet_Boots]

Uhhh, why cut the original wire twice? That is, if you want all the splices to fit in one small box.

[Dirty Water]

Uhhh, why cut the original wire twice? That is, if you want all the splices to fit in one small box.

You don't. You use two boxes.

If you don't cut the wire twice, you end up with a lot of tension on the splice, and eventually it may fail. Plus, you'll never get a DBY connector on it.

[Without A Drought]

rotor, what i mean is this.
get all set up with the clips, take the dial in the box and put it on battery test. turn it on, making sure the battery is good, then turn the dial so the needle reads somewhere around 5 or 6. start locating. if you have a general idea of the wire path and kind of where the VB is, this should be strong enough. if you're on the other side of the house and it's a long wire run, you'll need a strong signal from the locator, so turn the dial in the box up to a reading of 7 or 8. if you max out the dial and can't get a good signal on the needle, usually you're ground is not good.


as far as the splice, what Jon "drew" was what i had in mind. although i ususally won't do the 2 econo boxes, just seems like a waste, and rather unsightly, all for a single wire splice.

pg

[Without A Drought]

I just looked again at the picture. i don't remove a section of the original wire. that's what i meant by a jumper. same as the picture, but i only cut the wire once, and install a loop of new wire between the 2 cut ends.

pg

[CAPT Stream Rotar]

rotor, what i mean is this.
get all set up with the clips, take the dial in the box and put it on battery test. turn it on, making sure the battery is good, then turn the dial so the needle reads somewhere around 5 or 6. start locating. if you have a general idea of the wire path and kind of where the VB is, this should be strong enough. if you're on the other side of the house and it's a long wire run, you'll need a strong signal from the locator, so turn the dial in the box up to a reading of 7 or 8. if you max out the dial and can't get a good signal on the needle, usually you're ground is not good.


as far as the splice, what Jon "drew" was what i had in mind. although i ususally won't do the 2 econo boxes, just seems like a waste, and rather unsightly, all for a single wire splice.

pg

Thanks for the responses drought....I will try that way of doing it..

Now when you say between 5-6 you must mean on the handset..I will try this today and let you all know how it goes..

ED

[FIMCO-MEISTER]

Eddie the 521 is a style thing. Do the same run several ways and find the style that works best for you. I crank the box as high as I can get it and do my tweeking with the wand.

[SprinklerGuy]

Ditto what Fimco said....sometimes I don't even listen to the headset..sometimes I just watch the needle on the wand.....

[CAPT Stream Rotar]

Ok Guys here goes the job.

my helper breaking ground(11:30 am EST) where we tap off the main/wire.
This was horrible digging..I felt bad for the kid...but alas I was worrying about everything else going on

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/5245/startofthespliceci2.jpg

View of the uppper wall/patio I'm going to drip soon.

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/5504/dscn1317ow2.jpg

From what I've been told Drip is the only way to water roses properly..From what I'm told they love the water on the roots and not the pedals..we put it about 3 inches in the ground.All of the was 12" techline
.

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/1381/dscn1319eo7.jpg

The feed all in ram...My helper was cursing the Mother Mary putting in this feed..nothing but rucks removed, 5-6 inches was the deepest he could get it.
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/4831/dscn1321wl3.jpg

The feed sneaks right along that wall, my partner was bending staples left and right trying to put this in..

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/6865/dscn1322gg4.jpg

[CAPT Stream Rotar]

Row of roses dripped..http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/3860/dscn1323vb1.jpg

I T'd the main and now was working on the electrical part.
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/285/dscn1324uq8.jpg

My wiring...I only cut it in one place centrally located in my ditch, jumped the 2 wires together and ran one for the new valve/reducer/filter.
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/1628/dscn1326kz6.jpg

King-Nutted(boy do my hands hurt)-
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/3438/dscn1329kt0.jpg

This is just how I was taught to jump/splice off main..Please constructive criticism's only :) . I Coated them all in silicone twice,dried out each time and then electrical tape>1 last coat of silicone.
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/9968/dscn1330rs4.jpg

To top all that off I cut a econo box in half and was able to get both splices under each box...Yay me.

http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/8276/dscn1334tg8.jpg

The result:Water where it belongs.
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/6858/dscn1335kn0.jpg

The final:as it should be we blew it off afterwards..Its was like we were almost not even there.
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/4789/dscn1339oi2.jpg


done by 3:30 both with a 30 min lunch

[FIMCO-MEISTER]

good job. I'll let others critique the wiring. As long as you used approved connectors, pulled each wire to make sure it doesn't pull out of the connector, and put in a box for future location you are fine by me. DBYs are great but they eat up a lot of space.I reserve those for commercial and deep burial applications. I personally prefer the King black whites and grey whites even though lately the black whites have been really inconsistent.

How did the wire tracking go?

[Dirty Water]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of working through dried silicon and electrical tape to fix a bad splice. But thats just me.

I've never had any luck with Kings.

DBY's, or GelCaps which are about half the size of DBY's.

GelCap:

http://www.indiflow.co.uk/onlineshop/images/kingconnector.jpg

DBY:

http://store.paigewire.com/images/specpics/dby.jpg

[gusbuster]

From what I've been told Drip is the only way to water roses properly..From what I'm told they love the water on the roots and not the pedals..we put it about 3 inches in the ground.All of the was 12" techline


From somebody that does maintenance, regarding why you water roses at the base and try to avoid getting moisture on the leaves is a lot of roses easily get fungus problems(moisture left on leaves) specially in a climate like you find along the San Francisco Bay Area. Otherwise in hot climates, you can get away with watering the leaves. However, if the soil doesn't properly drain, water at the roots is not any better.

[CAPT Stream Rotar]

good job. I'll let others critique the wiring. As long as you used approved connectors, pulled each wire to make sure it doesn't pull out of the connector, and put in a box for future location you are fine by me. DBYs are great but they eat up a lot of space.I reserve those for commercial and deep burial applications. I personally prefer the King black whites and grey whites even though lately the black whites have been really inconsistent.

How did the wire tracking go?

Fimco-The tracking went much better...I am still getting used to it but your method was favorable..Thanks for the great advice.I was able to track the wire for this ditch..As far as the Dby's go I have never used any..but I would like to in the future...Also i have never used the King black whites...Just he grey ones.Are the black ones bigger in size?

[FIMCO-MEISTER]

The Blackwhites are the smaller ones. I use them instead of the greys that you used on this job. We had a lot of trouble with those greys and blues. The spring would just come out of the plastic part.

[CAPT Stream Rotar]

The Blackwhites are the smaller ones. I use them instead of the greys that you used on this job. We had a lot of trouble with those greys and blues. The spring would just come out of the plastic part.

On all of those wires once that happened to me...I shoved that plastic part back into the nut and kept going...I do hear what your saying...I will def try the smaller ones next time..

Good luck with your irrigation adventures today! I really want to go back to Ben this year for an intermediate course....My boss might spring the cash if I keep the production and $$ high this year!! Boy you are up early?what time is it in the DFW area? 4:30?

Have some fun to day buddy!

CSR

[FIMCO-MEISTER]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of working through dried silicon and electrical tape to fix a bad splice. But thats just me.

I've never had any luck with Kings.

DBY's, or GelCaps which are about half the size of DBY's.

GelCap:

http://www.indiflow.co.uk/onlineshop/images/kingconnector.jpg

DBY:

http://store.paigewire.com/images/specpics/dby.jpg


I use those but I hate those yellow nuts they send with them. I use my own dry splices. I think my hatred for them stems from contractors using them inside controllers on 18ga and that flimsy controller wire. They wad it all together, bend the 18 over and the twist it together. Of course their is no room in the controller for 12 big yellow splices. Hooking up a pigtail to that mess is frustrating as all get out.