On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:39:31 -0500, PeterD wrote:

3M makes underground splice kits that may work
(used primarily for telco work).

Great idea! If it works for the telephone company, it should work here.

On the 3M web site, I found a splice kit for 3-conductor "armored" cable,
but not 4 conductor (and it was for 10-14 AWG, not 16AWG).

Here's the product information from: http://tinyurl.com/ybrgmlf
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3...G CC8VFQJBCgl

- 3M„¢ 3/C Low Voltage Splice Kit 5730, 14-10 AWG (UPC 00054007431718).
- These kits are applicable for indoor and outdoor installations,
- including direct burial, aerial and submersible applications.
- This kit requires 1 roll of 3M„¢ Armorcast„¢ Structural Material.

Do you think I can find a 4-conductor shielded 16 AWG cable splice kit at
ACE, OSH, or Home Depot? (I'll try later today.)

On Tue, 2 Feb 2010 15:26:21 +0000 (UTC), Elmo
wrote:

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:39:31 -0500, PeterD wrote:

3M makes underground splice kits that may work
(used primarily for telco work).

Great idea! If it works for the telephone company, it should work here.

No. Soldering is better. The phone company doesn't want to spend the
time it takes to solder each connection, up to hundreds a day, and it
has a staff to go fix problems when they develop, as well as
electronic tools to find the break in a wire, by injecting a signal at
one end if necessary.

And if you plan to use the gel connectors they use, that might require
practice too to learn to do them right, and maybe also a special pair
of pliers. I'm not sure, but I know you've never done it before.

On the 3M web site, I found a splice kit for 3-conductor "armored" cable,
but not 4 conductor (and it was for 10-14 AWG, not 16AWG).

Here's the product information from: http://tinyurl.com/ybrgmlf
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3...G CC8VFQJBCgl

- 3M™ 3/C Low Voltage Splice Kit 5730, 14-10 AWG (UPC 00054007431718).
- These kits are applicable for indoor and outdoor installations,
- including direct burial, aerial and submersible applications.
- This kit requires 1 roll of 3M™ Armorcast™ Structural Material.

I don't know what "3M™ Armorcast™ Structural Material" is, but it's
not for you. You also don't have armored cable.

Do you think I can find a 4-conductor shielded 16 AWG cable splice kit at
ACE, OSH, or Home Depot? (I'll try later today.)

I've never heard of a kit being designed for a certain number of
conductors, unless maybe they're talking about some special way to
splice all 3 conductors at the same time. There's no need to do that.
For one thing, you'd need some machine costing thousands to solder
more than one connection at the same time, and any other kind of
connection is inferior. Just solder and tape each connection
yourself, one at a time. By offsetting the splices, as I and one of
the links you gave suggested, you won't have to wrap insulation around
each separate solder joint. Just make sure that neither the soldered
area or any of the bared wire is at the same position as any bare
portion of any conductor. And make sure there are no sharp points in
the solder of any conection. They could pierce the insulation. I
think they only result when the solder isn't hot enough, (or maybe
when there wasn't enough flux???). At any rate, you probably won't
have that, or you can reheat, or cut them off with wire cutters, or
wrap them separately with enough layers so it can't pierce through.

Then just wrap the whole thing at one time. If it turns out that two
of the uninsulated parts could touch each other, wrap one of them
seaparately first.

You're making this too complicated, partly because of what they told
you when you first called. You need a soldering iron, solder, and
tape, not a kit.


BTW, when some of these sites talk about low voltage, they're talking
about 110 volts and 220 volts, as opposed to 10,000 volts, which is
high voltage. They're talking about currents in the range of 10 or 20
amps or more. No, much more. Look at the wire gauges they deal with
in the link you provide above. 14 to 10AWG, 8-4AWG, 2-1/0, 2-0. 14
gauge will carry 15 amps, 10 gauge will carry at least 25 amps. 8
gauge at least 30 amps (probably more but I don't recall) 2 gauge must
carry 100 amps and zero gauge even more. Imagine how big those wires
are. That's what these kits are for, not for little wires carrying
tiny currents, like a few thousandths of an amp.

You otoh are dealing with much lower voltalge and much lower currents,
and much lower maximum currents also. You can't even feel 12 volts
and maybe you can barely feel a tingle with 24 volts, but I don't
think so.

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:19:25 -0500, Meat Plow wrote:


No. Soldering is better. The phone company doesn't want to spend the
time it takes to solder each connection, up to hundreds a day, and it
has a staff to go fix problems when they develop, as well as
electronic tools to find the break in a wire, by injecting a signal at
one end if necessary.

Hey please stop cross posting this bull**** to SER.

The trouble is, we don't know which group the OP is reading. We
don't know which group gets the "post" and which gets the cross post.

I used to say which group I was posting from when I crosspostd, but no
one else seems to think of that.

Thanks.

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:19:25 -0500, Meat Plow wrote:

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:26:57 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Tue, 2 Feb 2010 15:26:21 +0000 (UTC), Elmo
wrote:

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:39:31 -0500, PeterD wrote:

3M makes underground splice kits that may work
(used primarily for telco work).

Great idea! If it works for the telephone company, it should work here.

No. Soldering is better. The phone company doesn't want to spend the
time it takes to solder each connection, up to hundreds a day, and it
has a staff to go fix problems when they develop, as well as
electronic tools to find the break in a wire, by injecting a signal at
one end if necessary.

Hey please stop cross posting this bull**** to SER.

Thanks.

**** off meathead.

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:19:25 -0500, Meat Plow wrote:


No. Soldering is better. The phone company doesn't want to spend the
time it takes to solder each connection, up to hundreds a day, and it
has a staff to go fix problems when they develop, as well as
electronic tools to find the break in a wire, by injecting a signal at
one end if necessary.

Hey please stop cross posting this bull**** to SER.

The trouble is, we don't know which group the OP is reading. We
don't know which group gets the "post" and which gets the cross post.

I used to say which group I was posting from when I crosspostd, but no
one else seems to think of that.

Thanks.

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:24:33 -0500, mm wrote:

The trouble is, we don't know which group the OP is reading. We
don't know which group gets the "post" and which gets the cross post.

My fault. I'll just stick with alt.home.repair!

I used to say which group I was posting from when I crosspostd, but no
one else seems to think of that.

That's a good idea. I'll use it next time.

On Wed, 3 Feb 2010 06:15:40 +0000 (UTC), Elmo
wrote:

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:24:33 -0500, mm wrote:

The trouble is, we don't know which group the OP is reading. We
don't know which group gets the "post" and which gets the cross post.

My fault. I'll just stick with alt.home.repair!

I used to say which group I was posting from when I crosspostd, but no
one else seems to think of that.

That's a good idea. I'll use it next time.

Well I personally think cross posting is a good thing a) when one
doesn't know which group is the better or best one.

b) when people on one group could benefit by learning from the other
group.

c) lots of other good reasons.

For just one example, a Firefox question to a small netscape/firefox
group and a big OS group. Everyone who uses firefox would benefit if
the firefox guy knows the answer, but there are a lot more people in
the OS group.

Another example is this thread here. I don't know why meatplow
objected. I think he reads this group anyhow and not the other one.

One of the big disadvantages of web forums is that there is no way to
ask a "multi-disciplinary" question in more than one forum at the same
time, or so each will read the others' replies.

In article , lid (Elmo) writes:

| Do you think I can find a 4-conductor shielded 16 AWG cable splice kit at
| ACE, OSH, or Home Depot? (I'll try later today.)

I doubt it.

Here is the kit I used to splice the cable to a similar vehicle detection
wand about 15 years ago. It has worked fine since:

http://www.homecontrols.com/Winland-...ice-Kit-WL1082

Note that this was just the first Google hit and you may be able to find
it as a Winland product for less. Moreover, Winland probably doesn't
actually make it so you might find a generic for even less again.

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:00:31 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:19:25 -0500, Meat Plow wrote:


No. Soldering is better. The phone company doesn't want to spend the
time it takes to solder each connection, up to hundreds a day, and it
has a staff to go fix problems when they develop, as well as
electronic tools to find the break in a wire, by injecting a signal at
one end if necessary.

Hey please stop cross posting this bull**** to SER.

The trouble is, we don't know which group the OP is reading. We
don't know which group gets the "post" and which gets the cross post.

I used to say which group I was posting from when I crosspostd, but no
one else seems to think of that.

Thanks.

Please don't feed meathead the troll. He offers no advice just a total
waste of bandwidth trolling for his 15 seconds of fame.

On Feb 2, 1:26*pm, mm wrote:
...snip...
No. Soldering is better. * The phone company doesn't want to spend the
time it takes to solder each connection, up to hundreds a day, and it
has a staff to go fix problems when they develop, as well as
electronic tools to find the break in a wire, by injecting a signal at
one end if necessary.

....snip...
from PERSONAL experience:
DON'T SOLDER LONG TERM CONNECTIONS! ESPECIIALLY OUTDOORS!

Crimp, or constant mechanical pressure is BEST. And DON'T solder a
crimp, you will ruin it.

I made the mistake of soldering links in my security system. Now
these solder joints were something to be proud of, too. Cleaned
wire. Wrapped tightly together at the splice for at least 5 turns.
Solder was high quality and not overheated during soldering. Solder
shiny and wetting out for at least 1 inch. They lasted 10 years before
I got hit with a false alarm. Then a month later another mysterious
false alarm. Each time reset alarm system and all connections were
good. Then went to every week. Until I went to all my soldered
junctions and re-soldered them. Alarm worked for another 10 years,
until, repeat.

I never had to re-do my crimped connections.

Being an arrogant college graduate, I did not listen to the "lowly"
experienced security system installers who told me about crimping is
better than soldering. I knew better. I thought they just were lazy,
because careful soldering takes time and crimping is fast. I learned
a very humbling experience from these experiences.

By the way, a separate alarm system with links running outside the
building, the soldered connections lasted only one year before false
alarm. So, again, don't solder your connections.

Crimp is best, because you have constant mechanical pressure between
the conductors. Solder won't do that, all eases with time.

Robert

On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:54:45 -0500, Meat Plow wrote:

...

Blow it out your ass you incessant babbling assclown.
You ****ing idiots have run this topic into the ground
like a bunch off nattering old ****s. In reality you ****heads
are the trolls, not I and I contribute where I can. Just happens my
contribution to this beaten into the ground thread is for you to end
the cross post and argue about this silly ass bull**** in AHR. If you
don't like it shove it up your ****ing fart-valve.

And if you think I care enough about fame in the eyes of
****witted turds like you and the rest of these nattering nincompoops
You are woefully mistaken.

Hee-he-he-eh... Mature response, proves the point nicely.