Cable Route!

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Eduardo Maun

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My senior Engineer instruct me to trace the cable route on the pumping station, When I visit the site I found out that it's not easy to find where are cable are running because a lot of cable(s) are on the cable tray, cable tray comes in three layer.I ask him to give me another person to assist me to do the work but he told me I can do that myself. By the way were upgrading the pumping station. What should I say to my Senior Engineer? What will I do?Well I can put the cable route on the plan but I'm not sure if that the exact cable route from the Switchgear to Motor and to the Pump.

Please Advice!

Thank you!
 

peter

Senior Member
Location
San Diego
Since Charlie B. is on a spelling kick, it should be: "Please advise." "Advice" is a noun; "Advise" is a verb. This is a common gramatical mistake. [I used to have the rank of major in the British army.]

As for your question: Contractors do the job as quickly and cheaply as possible and they do not take steps to ease future trouble-shooting. [i.e. identifying cables] So you're stuck. If you had a helper, he could pull on one end and you could see which cable moves.
If these cables are energized, clanp an ampmeter onto each cable and record the reading. At the other end, do it again and the identical readings should give you a clue as to what's what.
~Peter
 
peter said:
Since Charlie B. is on a spelling kick, it should be: "Please advise." "Advice" is a noun; "Advise" is a verb. This is a common gramatical mistake. [I used to have the rank of major in the British army.]

now i remember why i haven't been to this site in a while...
 

peter

Senior Member
Location
San Diego
Monkeyman1,
I am sorry my comments have diverted this discussion thread.
Do you have any other ideas to help the guy out?
~Peter:)
 

quogueelectric

Senior Member
Location
new york
First find out if the cable is shielded or not. If it is not shielded you could put say an amprobe 2005 series advanced cable tracer and you would be on that cable like stink on a monkey.
 

shwazqrt

Member
peter said:
As for your question: Contractors do the job as quickly and cheaply as possible and they do not take steps to ease future trouble-shooting. [i.e. identifying cables] So you're stuck. ~Peter


Happy Ending .. .. ... :D


it is now very difficult to route a cable without the cable tag numbers installed


so ... ... wish you big luck :)
 

Eduardo Maun

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Cable Route!

Well thank you with your advice, I appreciate it. I told my senior Engineer that it's not that easy to trace cable route again I ask him to give me another person to assist me I gave my result after I went to the site, What he told me if he will do the job "cable route tracing" he can do it within an hour. Do you think he can really do that I asked some electrical engineer here they told me it will take time. Do you think my senior engineer is reasonable?

Again thank you!

God Bless...
 

shwazqrt

Member
if he can do it in an hour..

then tell him the job is his.... :D


with the assessment of some helpers you will do the job in hours ... if it is not days... what he told you about the hour... i think he wants you to do the job & test your patient .. one hour is beyond the boundries of logic :D
 
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Bob NH

Senior Member
Eduardo Maun said:
Well thank you with your advice, I appreciate it. I told my senior Engineer that it's not that easy to trace cable route again I ask him to give me another person to assist me I gave my result after I went to the site, What he told me if he will do the job "cable route tracing" he can do it within an hour. Do you think he can really do that I asked some electrical engineer here they told me it will take time. Do you think my senior engineer is reasonable?

Again thank you!

God Bless...
The senior engineer is more than reasonable in tolerating your actions.

The Senior Engineer may have a responsibility to show the cable routing on plans to be delivered to someone else.

Since it appears that he is the boss, and has been given that position by someone above him, he deserves a certain amount of respect due to his position. He probably gets paid more than you do so an hour of his time costs the company more than an hour of your time. Why not just go do the job because it needs to get done and you were asked to do it?

You have probably spent more time asking the electrical engineer and arguing about it than it would have taken to do it immediately when asked. You may even be spending time on this forum when you could be doing the job.

If I were the senior engineer and you did to me what you are doing to him I would go do it in an hour and then I would fire you.
 
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e57

Senior Member
quogueelectric said:
What is this unit worth?? I am getting quotes from 700 to 2100??

$700 is a steal, old, used or stolen.... :wink: $2k sounds about right for new... Whenever I need one I rent it for $35 a day.... Depending on whats available I get the one I linked to, or an older equally usfull 3M made unit.

Anyway back to the OP - It occures to me that is possible that he and his employer may have a communication problem with the terms of "cable path" The OP seems to be looking for an "EXACT" path, and the employer looking for "A" path which is much more arbitrary....:-? (This panel to that j-box, etc)

Having been hired to do simular work for an engineer on occasion. I can do much of a building in a day with visible conduits, make a panel schedules for each panel, determine areas and equipment on each panel - but would not be drawing out each and every cable path... Only providing simple one-line or line diagrams, a much more arbitrary result - so in that context I don't see "One Hour" as being unreasonable for "one" piece of equipment.

Sounds as if Eduardo is up in the rack going over the cable "Hand over Hand" - which may not be the the assumed task... The Engineer may only be looking for 'Voltage/Amperage, wire and conduit size, from such and such a panel and a generalized path to the equipment'... ????
 
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quogueelectric

Senior Member
Location
new york
Noboby here has enough information to tell how long it will take to do this job. By the sounds of the information I have, the fact that it has cable trays it must be a fairly large plant possibly a powerhouse. If it has any type of safety program that is very time consuming. If you want to impliment a safety program you will have to pay more and have tremendous amounts of time to complete this task. If the cable trays run say 30 ft in the air he will probably have to get an articulating manlift, fall protection,tracing equipment, ladders, ect.... , ect...... provided he has the osha certification training and evaluation in 29 cfr 1926.453 Aerial Lifts. That will take annother day of nonproductive training.
If the cable tray is all installed under say 10 ft he could probably get it off a 6 or 8 foot ladder. which could be a half a mile away. There will always be abusive supervision in this world . Get yourself a composition book not looseleaf as this will hold up in court and keep acurate records of these little problems in case they try to fire you.
The cable trays could be stuffed with hundreds of other cables and twisted in for hundreds of feet
It always seems that the guys who never do the work are the experts on how long something takes and I ALLWAYS call them out on the carpet. Almost all refuse to be exposed but some take the bait. This is where a guy who actually does the work every day will smoke a guy who only does it in his head every day.
 

e57

Senior Member
Sorry quogueelectric, I was droning on editing my previous post - but I don't think that this "engineer" is even looking for all of that.... I think this is something that can be done from the floor with some common sense. Although it may be much easier for say you or I to do it as we can "Think like the Installer" of the original run and fill in most of the blanks from experiance.... And from the truck no less.... :grin:


Think about it.... Whens the last time an Engineer gave you anything with an "exact" cable path on it????? ;)
 
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quogueelectric

Senior Member
Location
new york
e57 said:
Sorry quogueelectric, I was droning on editing my previous post - but I don't think that this "engineer" is even looking for all of that.... I think this is something that can be done from the floor with some common sense. Although it may be much easier for say you or I to do it as we can "Think like the Installer" of the original run and fill in most of the blanks from experiance.... And from the truck no less.... :grin:


Think about it.... Whens the last time an Engineer gave you anything with an "exact" cable path on it????? ;)
I am still waiting for it.
 

Smart $

Esteemed Member
Location
Ohio
Bob NH said:
...

If I were the senior engineer and you did to me what you are doing to him I would go do it in an hour and then I would fire you.
Bob,

I understand your position if the senior engineer has actually seen and knows for certain the condition of the cables in the cable tray.

However, I have seen cables in cable tray that would take two people perhaps a half day just to physically verify routing of one cable through a 100 foot span of tray. Under such conditions the SE's assignment would be entirely unreasonable!!!

Another condition may be there are live conductors in the tray with no guarantee of insulation integrity. Are proper safety procedures being observed?
 

Smart $

Esteemed Member
Location
Ohio
e57 said:
Think about it.... Whens the last time an Engineer gave you anything with an "exact" cable path on it????? ;)
Every major industrial project I have been on over the past couple years has indicated exact routing. Each portion of tray between turns and intersections are assigned a number or two, conduits are also numbered, and cable pull sheets indicate those numbers for routing.
 
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