Solar Power to provide 220 to barn for welding, etc.

A possible..possible..usually but not always fix...is to suck out the original phone line and use it to pull in Cat 5 or Cat 6 network cable., then hook the Cat 5 or Cat 6 up as you had the original phone wire. Its quite good at filtering out a lot of EMI. Not perfect of course..but actually quite good.

Hit up one of the network guys you see running around in the Network/Telephone service trucks for a partial box. Tell em a sob story and give him a $5 and they will generally cough up a decent quantity.

Most phone system guys have gone over to Cat5/6 now days for phone system wiring, least in the L.A. area where Crom knows what is running in the cable next to his.

The stuff used to be expensive, and now days by the box is nearly the same price as regular 4 pair phone cable.

Sometimes...if you have a 60 cycle hum on your phone..if you have the multiple conductor cable with the blu/white, or/white etc pairs..if you take an unused pair and run a jumper to a GOOD earth ground..it may knock out a bunch of the hum as well. Only ground the cable pair on ONE end. Never on both. Ground loops are another bitch of a subject...sigh

Gunner, Sr. Engineer for a data/communications company in another life....who still keeps his hand in the biz.

Gunner

"If thy pride is sorely vexed when others disparage your offering, be as lamb's wool is to cold rain and the Gore-tex of Odin's raiment is to gullshit in the gale, for thy angst shall vex them not at all. Yea, they shall scorn thee all the more. Rejoice in sharing what you have to share without expectation of adoration, knowing that sharing your treasure does not diminish your treasure but enriches it."

- Onni 1:33

Reply to
Gunner
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"Rick Barter" wrote in message news:f1bd8$4482d5c1$4540031f$ snipped-for-privacy@news.bluegrass.net... | Gunner wrote: | | > The cheap way of course is to put in a 22 vt 60-100 amp subpanel and | > run 220 out to the barn..or pick up a gas powered welder. | >

| > Unless you win the Power Ball...the last two may be your best | > options.... | | Thanks for the info everyone. Gunner, you mention the 'cheap way' is | to put 100-amp sub-panel. That's what I'm in the process of trying to | do and when I got hit with the estimate of $1200 to go 150' I almost | shit myself. Then I just started thinking of alternatives.

In your case, there are two ways to run the wire out. Direct burial cable is available, which is made for going right into the soil. Works fine. The much better and way cheaper option is to run ABS conduit and pull it in. I lean heavily for the conduit on account of price and maintainability. It takes a bit longer, but you can also run several other pipes in the same trench for air, phone, computer, or anything else that you will think of later. Mind the spacing between the low voltage lines which will could cause a highly annoying hum on the phone line. I have a suggestion you might like. Call up some local electric outfits and ask if one of their electricians would be willing do side work on the weekends to offer you some casual direction and assistance (perhaps even some tools) in exchange for reasonable money and some beer of his choice. He can give you all the direction you need, and providing you listen well, his time spent with you will be kept to a minimum. His services will be mostly needed at the ends, where the wire is out of the ground and hooking up inside your panels. You can likely get him to buy off the work, which saves the inspector's time, as well as impresses them when they find out how you did it. Of course, if you happen to know the right electrician, you're way ahead of the game. As far as your wire gage selection goes, it is more a function of how much current you'll be drawing at max and how long the run is, and if you ever possibly expect to upgrade, in which case head for overkill on the size. From the number of wires and their gage, you then figure out what size conduit you need. I thought one of my old reference handbooks would get that data, but the one that would be best is strictly industrial and doesn't cover single phase stuff. A question for you. Will your existing electric service and primary panel support this rather large load? You need to make sure, otherwise you're in for an upgrade from the power company's pole to your meter, which is definitely expensive.

| In any event, I'm thinking of trenching the whole thing myself and | finding out what size wires and what conduit I need. Getting it ready | and then just calling an electrician to hook it up. Problem is I | don't know how deep to go and I have gas and some water lines in the way. | | I guess I could just call up digsafe and get them to mark the | locations of the pipes, dig around them by hand and trench the rest. | My father-in-law rents equipment so I can rent the trencher pretty | cheap. ;) | | Anyone have any advice on how sound my plan is here?

I think you are looking at it from the right direction, so as long as you keep looking into it and learning more, you will do fine.

Reply to
carl mciver

"RoyJ" wrote: (clip) But unless it does it ALL the time, I'd be looking at a bad phone line or phone. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I don't think the power line will act as a transformer primary unless it's carrying current. If you have hum some of the time, see whether that correlates to how much current is flowing in the power lines.

Reply to
Leo Lichtman

I'd buy an old Lincoln SA200 pipeline welder - about as good a stick welder as you can get, much cheaper and better than the Bobcat - runs quietly; doesn't use much fuel and is easy to fix. You can find a great one for less than $2,500; I've bought several that lacked cosmetics but ran well for well under $1,000 in the last 5 years. If you want to weld with MIG, you can buy a suitcase wire feeder (either Lincoln or Miller) that will hook right up to the SA200 and run either fluxcored or gas shielded wire. Then, if you want to fix something outside the barn, you have that option.

Reply to
bfrlaw

Rick,

Just buy yourself a used Lincoln SA200 pipeline welder and be done with all that other stuff. You'll have a far better welder and it'll be portable to boot. You can get a great one for less than $2,500 and one that either works or could easily be fixed for $1,000 or less although it may be cosmetically challenged. If you want to use it for MIG you can attach a suitcase wire feed unit (Both Lincoln and Miller make them) directly to the output leads and you'll then have a portable wire feeder capable of using either flux cored or gas shielded wire.

Bruce

Reply to
bfrlaw

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