jackrobbins
New member
Hi guys,I am replacing an outside overhead 120/240 volt 200 amp fused ,160 ft. long feeder cable.The cable originates from a mast emerging from the ground (which originated from the service entrance equipment inside a building) and extends 160 ft. on wooden poles to a 200 amp fused disconnect.An electrical contractor installed the existing feeder about three yaers ago.He used two # 2 awg triplex cables(two conductor with ground)and paralled them.He also used two different conductor insulation types on each phase of the installation,did not make all conductors the same lenth,and used one shared nuetral for all four parelled phase conductors.Halfway through the 160ft run thier is a splice also feeding a 100 amp disconnect.At the splice all three split-bolt connectors and wire is corroded and the wires are burnt and the insulation on both phase conductors is melted completely about a foot down the wires and bubbling insulation fromm high heat about another foot down.Is'nt it true you can only parellel 1/0 and larger conductors,and could anyone take a crack at what may be happening her that caused this overheating.I am planning on taking this feeder down and am going to be running just one larger triplex cable.I was planning on running #4/0 al.,but after looking at the code thought maybe I could use #2/0 al. for this outside ariel feeder.Would 2/0 triplex(two conductor with bare ground be adequete for a 120/240 200 amp ouside overhead feeder.I'd really appreciate any help on this.Thanks guys, Dan
