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The Daring Dufas[_8_]

On 4/14/2013 10:22 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:46:03 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 4/14/2013 7:13 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
On 4/12/2013 6:57 PM, Art Todesco wrote:
I know that you are not allowed to mix, say a low voltage line in a
conduit with line voltage wires. My question is, can you mix them if
either the line voltage wires or the low voltage wires are in their own
"conduit" inside of the larger conduit? I have a 2" diameter plastic,
flexi conduit going from my house to an area out by the road. Right now
it is used to bring 120 volts to a post lamp and an outlet in its base.
Now, if I wanted to run some low voltage lines, could I put them in a
piece of Greenfield (grounded of course) and run that Greenfield with
its low voltage wires, through the same conduit?

Thanks to all who replied. Some of my questions were curiosity based on
stuff that I am or will be working on. I do have a 2" plastic conduit
which presently has 120 volt UF cable in it for the said post lamp.
Other low voltage things might be a speaker line or 12 volts for
landscape lighting.

In addition, my subdivision has a gate at the entrance. The gate
controller has the ability to allow a visitor to look up each resident
and call the resident. The resident can, via phone keypad, open the
gate. Right now there is no phone line connected to the gate
controller. However, there is a phone line about 30' from the gate
controller, which is owned by me, but it must cross the asphalt. There
is a 3" (I think) conduit under the asphalt. The possibility is run the
phone line through that conduit to the gate controller. There are 120
or 240 volt lines in the conduit. So, the phone line should probably be
run using an ENT or equivalent, inside the original 3" conduit.

You could pull MC cable through the PVC which would put your power in
essentially a metal conduit inside the PVC separating low voltage and
communication lines from the power. ^_^

TDD

Legally, cables are cables. For the purposes of this, UF is the same
as MC.
The main issue is how you get these cables into and out of the conduit
without getting into the jacket. Neither can terminate in an enclosure
with the other. That is why inspectors usually just say no.
The option most likely to survive is simply a sleeve that is not
ending on an enclosure at each end. Then the cables just use that as a
duct.
Discrete conductors would need to be in a flexible raceway of some
type. (Greenfield, Sealtite or Smurf)
IMHO
If you have a box or conduit body at both ends where the cables split
out as undisturbed cable and terminate in separate boxes, you are OK
Another option would be one big box, partitioned into 3 separate
areas, one for the entrance of the cables, where they split out and a
separate area on each side where low and line voltage get terminated.

All that said, there are still plenty of inspectors who will not
accept 725 (low voltage) wiring in the same pipe as chapter 3 (line
voltage) wiring, no matter how you do it.

I suppose it would all depend on the engineering department in your
jurisdiction? I've done work for The Army Corps of Engineers and if we
approached them with a problem that seemed like it was outside normal
practice, they would allow our solution if they deemed it safe. o_O

TDD