New wire for living/dinette slideout?

[wamcneil]

Hi all,

I'd like to pull a network cable into my living/dinette slide-out. I can see the end of the telescoping conduit inside the frame rail, and I've dug into the cabinet under the dinette and can see where the slideout wiring enters under the cabinet.

What's involved with fishing a wire through this tube? I'm not seeing an easy way to push a fish tape in the tube and turn the corner up into the cabinet.

Thanks Walter

[Mel S - '96 Safari]

19 minutes ago, wamcneil said:

Hi all,

I'd like to pull a network cable into my living/dinette slide-out. I can see the end of the telescoping conduit inside the frame rail, and I've dug into the cabinet under the dinette and can see where the slideout wiring enters under the cabinet.

What's involved with fishing a wire through this tube? I'm not seeing an easy way to push a fish tape in the tube and turn the corner up into the cabinet.

Thanks Walter

 

Walter

I suggest you try a fish tape

Edited January 15, 2020 by Mel S - '96 Safari

[Ivan K]

If fish tape is not a solution and if the bundle is loose enough to fit an other wire or two, I would see if I can use one of the existing wires to hook and tape the new cable and a string (or an extra wire if feasible)  to it at the destination side, pull them back and then use the string to pull the existing wire back to where it was. Hope it makes sense...

[wamcneil]

1 hour ago, Ivan K said:

If fish tape is not a solution and if the bundle is loose enough to fit an other wire or two, I would see if I can use one of the existing wires to hook and tape the new cable and a string (or an extra wire if feasible)  to it at the destination side, pull them back and then use the string to pull the existing wire back to where it was. Hope it makes sense...

Yeah, I was hoping I could use the old phone cord to pull a wire back through, but I opened the part of the bundle that's visible and it's pretty tightly wrapped with tape about every 6"....

I'm starting to think this may be more trouble than it's worth. 

The fish tape is going to be tough. The wire port goes straight down about 10" to the bottom of the slide and turns back 90 deg into the chassis tube. I might see if I can disconnect the tube where it connects to the inside of the slideout. If I can disconnect and retract the sliding tube it may get a lot easier...

Thanks,

Walter

[Bob Nodine]

12 hours ago, wamcneil said:

Yeah, I was hoping I could use the old phone cord to pull a wire back through, but I opened the part of the bundle that's visible and it's pretty tightly wrapped with tape about every 6"....

I'm starting to think this may be more trouble than it's worth. 

The fish tape is going to be tough. The wire port goes straight down about 10" to the bottom of the slide and turns back 90 deg into the chassis tube. I might see if I can disconnect the tube where it connects to the inside of the slideout. If I can disconnect and retract the sliding tube it may get a lot easier...

Thanks,

Walter

One other thing to try is .080 string trimmer line. It is more flexible than a steel fish tape and might go around the turn.

[jacwjames]

Just a thought (way way way out of the box) is to rig a vacuum cleaner on one end with a tight fit so that you pull a vacuum through the conduit.  Rig up a small light weight fluffy  rag on the end of a light weight string or light fishing line and see if you can suck it through the conduit, might have to pull/release to get it past obstacles.   If you get the light weight string through you can pull a heavier string. 

I know they do this with empty conduit, not sure it would work with wires in one but never know and wouldn't cost much to try. 

Edited January 16, 2020 by jacwjames

[wamcneil]

Thanks guys. I think I'll try both of those approaches.

[Guest Ray Davis]

I was involved in wiring some large antique  chandeliers one time and we used a long length of BB chain . Chain like you would find on a pull switch lamp . 

We used a vacuum on one end and an air nozzle on the other end to blow and suck the chain through . This made a nearly impossible job easy .

Another possibility you could try .

 

[wamcneil]

Thanks. That gives me an idea. Maybe feed a magnet through from the bottom on a fish tape, and drop a line with a small steel weight down from the top.

 

[wamcneil]

Ok, got it done... Like so many such projects it didn't quite go according to plan...

I tried pushing a fish tape in from below, and it never got to the point where it felt like it was striking the outside wall of the slide-out. So I left it in place and dropped a cheap chinese borescope down from the top. Couldn't see the end of the fish tape, and it looked like black foam around the cables making the turn at the bottom. So I'm pretty sure they foam'd it like all the other wiring penetrations.

Side note... There look to be some unused wires in the bundle coming up through the floor. The only low voltage circuits in the slide-out overhead are three lights. But the bundle going overhead in the slideout includes 4 12v wires, one ground wire, an un-terminated phone cable and what appear to be two speaker cables.

The bundle coming up through the floor also included an unused  white 12 ga ground wire that was not terminated. It looks like maybe they initially ran a 12ga ground all the way up into the slideout overhead, and then later pulled an 8 ga ground wire into the cabinet, added a ground bar on the floor and then cut the 12 ga ground wire to terminate one side of it in the ground bar.

So I used the orphan ground wire to pull a string  back down through the bundle and then used the string to pull cat5.

Now I can put my solar controller on the network!

Cheers,

Walter

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by wamcneil