CAT-5 buried, exposed to sun

over time? the stuff I used bonded instantly like warm chewiing gum. on the roll turns were separated by a layer of plastic

Bye. Jasen

We have that stuff, too. But also tons of huge rock outcroppings. Oh well, at least the new pipes are in now. Next is that cable. The store had this new "Christy's" PVC cement, says on the can that it can be used in wet conditions which was nice because somehow gate valves never close better than 99.9%. But it sure was messy since it ain't clear but blue (!). For the valve install I had to turn into a contortion artist.

When the water main before our meter busted open they replaced it with PVC. That surprised me. What surprised me even more was that they left an 45-degree joint exposed and that shows a wee chocolate-color by now. Does that mean it's going lalaland? I grew up in an area where water lines were always metal (still are AFAIK), no plastics.

Are you back to chips now or did you take a liking to discrete stuff again?

If it's not exhibiting roughness you can probably save it with a coating of latex.

Metal lines in this "soil" go bye-bye... extreme salinity.

Right now I'm doing a chip design and some patent infringement stuff.

...Jim Thompson

Depends on the climate! But that's the stuff all right.

HEre at the local hardware chain, the cable they sell for sprinkler systems IS cat5, and they charge $10 for about 5meters. If you buy a box of cat5 it cost about 10c a metre.

Then laying a piece of PVC across the span, and painting it appropriately (i.e, to camouflage), seems to me to be almost a no-brainer. :-)

And get some lichen and moss to break up those rocks! ;-)

Cheers! Rich

On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:31:42 GMT, Joerg wrote: (snip)

Does that mean they walk funny if you have a circular flower bed? ;-)

Really?? Wow. Out here they sell some heavy duty black cable with 4-5 conductors in there, non-twisted. Are you sure? Is that Home Depot or Lowes?

Hmm, Andy wrote that they sell CAT-5 as sprinkler valve cable (at a huge markup) in his neck of the woods.

Yeah, I am not worried about that. In this case I'll use four wires for one solenoid contact and four for the other, mostly to avoid adding to much resistance because this is at the end of a tremendous (old) cable run. Thing is, the valve was not installed to code and this was a professional company that did that. Couldn't believe it.

This is in Aus. The Home Depot equivelant here is Bunnings.

That would explain it.

Bye. Jasen

So it is Bunnings who sells CAT-5 for irrigation wiring? If it works in Australia I can't imagine why it wouldn't on California. Ok, our seasons are reversed but, in EE terms, that's merely a 180-degree phase shift :-)

Nothing interesting from your perspective. Just doing a bit of consulting for a few companies, including a former semi-competitor.

Run the cable it in a conduit (garden hose f.ex.) so when it rots/becomes brittle, you can yank it out and replace it without digging. That way it does not matter too much what it does.

They now use PE-Al-PE sandwich piping.

robert

That sounds rather expensive.

Ah, it's just plastics and a thin layer of aluminium. It weighs nothing and can be bent by hand to surprisingly small radii without kinking. The push-in connectors look expensivish, but you don't need many as the bendability of the tubing saves lots of angle pieces.

robert