 RhaasPremium
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO | Towersite buildout part 2
3/4 | 
Rest of cable rack is up | 
MGB | 
Cad welding 1/0 to MGB |  | 
Finished bond | 
1/0 to tower | 
Nice new mold.. Bonding 1/0 to fence |  | 
Turning the FNG loose to cad weld the fence posts |  |  |  |
So I've had a bunch of stuff come up that has kept me from working at the tower site for the last month or so. But I've managed to slip away from the fiber projects long enough to get a little more done. Took the FNG out to teach him to cad weld as well. |
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 John GaltForward, MarchPremium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
kudos:3 | Cadwelding...the most fun you can have without it being the Fourth of July. 
--
The Truth is the foremost enemy of the State now.
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RhaasPremium
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO
1 edit | Gah. JG pointed out my FNG ringed the sheath. This is how it should be done.. Now I get to teach the FNG how to use a cut off wheel.. |
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keefe007Premium
join:2004-02-24
Germantown, WI | reply to Rhaas
What's the difference? |
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RhaasPremium
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO | When you ring a cable like that you will almost always nick the copper underneath and create a weak spot for the cable to break. The second picture (the one I did, I didn't pay attention to him stripping that cable) is cut on an angle. |
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lutfulPremium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON Reviews:
 ·TekSavvy DSL
| reply to John Galt
said by John Galt:Cadwelding...the most fun you can have without it being the Fourth of July. Seems lots of cadwelding is being done for fun.
Most of the surge current will follow the tower legs and fence pole to ground. Safety/code bonding could have been done without cadwelding. |
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 TomS_Git-r-donePremium,MVM
join:2002-07-19
Ireland
kudos:1
1 edit | reply to Rhaas
I have a combo question/suggestion, and a suggestion:
Q: do you buy your earth bars pre-drilled? If so have you considered making your own? We looked at buying them pre-drilled but it worked out several factors cheaper to buy a strip of copper bar, cut it and drill the holes ourselves. Saved an absolute fortune.
S: do you cover up/hide/disguise your copper earth wiring in any way? Specifically the stuff joined up to the fence or anything that is visible. We recently had someone break into one of our compounds and rip out all of our earth cabling. :-( I would recommend doing anything you can to obfuscate its existence. |
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lutfulPremium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON Reviews:
·TekSavvy DSL
| said by TomS_:We recently had someone break into one of our compounds and rip out all of our earth cabling. :-( I would recommend doing anything you can to obfuscate its existence. Outdoor copper disappear quickly in poor countries no matter how you hide them. 
But some of these poor countries have frequent thunderstorms (see above chart for example) and telcos have limited budget for expensive equipment ... so their poor engineers were forced to develop robust grounding solutions which do not require copper or exothermic welding.
P.S. they use mainly steel which nobody still wants to steal. |
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John GaltForward, MarchPremium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
kudos:3 | reply to lutful
said by lutful:Seems lots of cadwelding is being done for fun. Most of the surge current will follow the tower legs and fence pole to ground. Safety/code bonding could have been done without cadwelding. It is being done that way because that is the specification for almost all commercial sites.
A mid-class site will cost about $500K...the cost of the cadwelding is a very minor cost in terms of percentage, yet offers substantial benefits in terms of electrical efficiency, mechanical robustness, and longevity.
--
The Truth is the foremost enemy of the State now.
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lutfulPremium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON Reviews:
·TekSavvy DSL
1 edit | said by John Galt:It is being done that way because that is the specification ... offers substantial benefits in terms of electrical efficiency, mechanical robustness, and longevity. Alternative grounding methods which do not use shiny cadwelds and fat copper must be inefficient, flimsy, and transient ... only suitable for over-populated developing countries with frequent thunderstorms where poor telcos can't afford equipment loss or service downtime. 
*** A relevant 2007 post with lots of debate ... I recall there were a few others on new tower grounding.
.»Bran New Tower, Grounding advise? |
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RhaasPremium
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO | reply to TomS_
said by TomS_:I have a combo question/suggestion, and a suggestion: Q: do you buy your earth bars pre-drilled? If so have you considered making your own? We looked at buying them pre-drilled but it worked out several factors cheaper to buy a strip of copper bar, cut it and drill the holes ourselves. Saved an absolute fortune. S: do you cover up/hide/disguise your copper earth wiring in any way? Specifically the stuff joined up to the fence or anything that is visible. We recently had someone break into one of our compounds and rip out all of our earth cabling. :-( I would recommend doing anything you can to obfuscate its existence. 1 - We do, only because we tend to get a good deal on them at times. Although I suspect that is ending. I will look into the bare bars.
2 - Yes - to an extent. Obviously a lot will be burried and good luck getting to it then. However visible stuff I generally paint with cold galv which will give the copper an appearance of being a steel cable from a distance. |
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| reply to Rhaas
what are you using to bond the gate portion of the fence to the fence post there? |
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 DaDawgsPremium
join:2010-08-02
Deltaville, VA | reply to Rhaas
»www.ashireporter.org/articles/ar···?id=1676
I posted this because I sense a ground war starting... |
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RhaasPremium
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO | reply to AMD Phreak
said by AMD Phreak:what are you using to bond the gate portion of the fence to the fence post there? »www.harger.com/products/idx.cfm?···infoid=0 |
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TomS_Git-r-donePremium,MVM
join:2002-07-19
Ireland
kudos:1
1 edit | reply to Rhaas
said by Rhaas:paint with cold galv which will give the copper an appearance of being a steel cable from a distance. Yeah we did that with our most recent project.
Prior to that though it was just green/yellow coloured (Australian standard) cable running into some flex conduit before disappearig beneath the earth.
The last project we did actually used flat copper strap instead of cable. PITA to work with though, it comes as an unsupported spool/coil (the stuff we bought did anyway). Drop that thing and forget about trying to wind it back up all nice and neat... |
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RhaasPremium
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO | I still have some 4" strap floating around, though what I have is in 10' lengths. Haven't really messed with it as I only have 1 mold for it. |
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| reply to Rhaas
Dont want to start a grounding war but a couple of questions?
Why are you using such heavy wire to the fence posts. Why are you using insulated grounding wire? Are you grounding or bonding? |
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RhaasPremium
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO | Simple economics- we have/use a lot of 1/0 elsewhere and have decided to standardize our grounding/bonding with 1/0. Same goes with the reason it's insulated cable. Plus keeps us from having a bazillion molds to keep up with. I will leave the insulation on within about a foot of the building and tower (galvanic reasons) and the rest we'll strip bare.
This is bonding, actual ground ring has yet to go in though I am hoping to get the ring in within the week. |
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lutfulPremium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON Reviews:
·TekSavvy DSL
| said by Rhaas:This is bonding, actual ground ring has yet to go in Hopefully that ground ring will eventually be bonded to properly engineered lightning surge protection scheme for all your equipment ...
... otherwise you will have to come back with another "lightning damage pics" thread and some expert will suggest what you needed was really "deep ground"  |
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| reply to Rhaas
I just wanted to make sure that people with smaller budgets were not discouraged thinking they needed that big of wire to bond items like a fence. While most specs call for #2 even #6 will work for bonding as there is actually no real impedence improvement of any resonable size of copper versus #6 at the frequencies that lightning occurs at. All one is trying to do with bonding is to prevent items from being at different voltages and not to divert surges. |
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