# Anyone else tried the new SimPull THHN yet?



## sparkysteve (Jan 23, 2007)

We pulled some in today. 350' of 350 mcm. No lube just as they claim. Absolutely amazing stuff. No lube! Pulled in better than regular wire with lube. No mess. Too bad we can't tell newbies that there's a free set of strippers at the bottom of the lube bucket.  Our boss wanted to try it out, the foreman says he'll order more. EC&M has a free DVD about it in the issue I got yesterday. I'm not sure if it costs more, but it should save some labor. http://www.southwire.com/processGetPage.do?bp=spthhn_featuredProduct.jsp


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

I've been using it, mostly because there doesn't seem to be a cost adder for it. My regular supply house is a Southwire dealer, and they've switched to pretty much all SimPull. I still use lube, but I'm kinda funny that way.


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## Greg (Aug 1, 2007)

That sounds like good stuff there. Yesterday we pulled 200' of 500. I had a tugger, 1 moron, 1 apprentice and another electrician and a bucket of lube. Maybe I could've eliminated 1 moron.


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

EC&M included a DVD on this in this months issue.


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## coderj (Aug 16, 2007)

Wait, so there really is a set of strippers at the bottom of the lube bucket. Dammit, I spent 15 minutes and I couldn't find them .

Seriously, buddy of mine raves about this stuff. Then again, he works on switchgear and such on a daily basis, probably makes his life easy .


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## te12co2w (Jun 3, 2007)

I hadn't heard of this stuff until I saw it here. This is a great site. How does it pull in grc? That is the real test for me. emt and pvc are usually a lot easier to pull through than rigid imo.


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## sparkysteve (Jan 23, 2007)

It works great in rigid too. Well IMC at least.


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## bburnette (Apr 13, 2008)

*No Lube THHN*

There are problems with this. You can't assume it will for any pull, number of bends, number of conductors and size of wire. We just pulled 347ft of 4C 500 THHN in EMT and we damage the nylon jacket. The pulling force started out much lower but around the 3rd bend it rose to a high value and was surging. 
Everything seemed to work but when we did our megger we had a dead short to ground on one phase. Pulled the wire back out and it was damaged. We are still going to lube for large wire and several bends. Good concept for all but the tougher pulls


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## gatti (Nov 24, 2007)

Greg said:


> That sounds like good stuff there. Yesterday we pulled 200' of 500. I had a tugger, 1 moron, 1 apprentice and another electrician and a bucket of lube. Maybe I could've eliminated 1 moron.


:laughing: you could of also elimanated the apprentice too.


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## dowmace (Jan 16, 2008)

bburnette said:


> There are problems with this. You can't assume it will for any pull, number of bends, number of conductors and size of wire. We just pulled 347ft of 4C 500 THHN in EMT and we damage the nylon jacket. The pulling force started out much lower but around the 3rd bend it rose to a high value and was surging.
> Everything seemed to work but when we did our megger we had a dead short to ground on one phase. Pulled the wire back out and it was damaged. We are still going to lube for large wire and several bends. Good concept for all but the tougher pulls



agreed we did a 300' pull of 3/0 into 3" but it had 3 90s and a 45 kick in it and we had problems with the outside skin coming off also.


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## Speedy Petey (Jan 10, 2007)

bburnette said:


> Everything seemed to work but when we did our megger we had a dead short to ground on one phase. Pulled the wire back out and it was damaged.


OUCH!


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## bburnette (Apr 13, 2008)

*A better Simpull*

the Southwire rep told us about Aluminum THHN Simpull so we tried that for the 300 and 500 copper pulls. We used 500 and 750 AL. It was in colors just like the copper with Simpull but half the weight. We saved about $160,000 bucks using the Al. Had a few problems with the engineer but got buy them. I think Simpull Al THHN is the way to go. Lower pulling tensions and cheaper.


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## randomkiller (Sep 28, 2007)

bburnette said:


> the Southwire rep told us about Aluminum THHN Simpull so we tried that for the 300 and 500 copper pulls. We used 500 and 750 AL. It was in colors just like the copper with Simpull but half the weight. We saved about $160,000 bucks using the Al. Had a few problems with the engineer but got buy them. I think Simpull Al THHN is the way to go. Lower pulling tensions and cheaper.


 
But you sounded pretty negative about it in your other post. You think the aluminum is better than copper? how would that change the jacket problems???


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## Mountain Electrician (Jan 22, 2007)

I love the SimPull things in life.


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## randomkiller (Sep 28, 2007)

Mountain Electrician said:


> I love the SimPull things in life.


 
Me too, sex, handguns, whiskey, tools, muscle cars, music, kids, the wife, not in any special order there.


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## Control Freak (Mar 8, 2008)

dowmace said:


> agreed we did a 300' pull of 3/0 into 3" but it had 3 90s and a 45 kick in it and we had problems with the outside skin coming off also.


 
Dowmace,
just curious all those bends and no pullboxes or condulets???????

just joking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a side note we recently did a pull like this with the simpull thhn using dyna blue wire ease and it seems like if the lube comes in contact with the actual copper of the conductor it changes the megger reading!!!!!!


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## dowmace (Jan 16, 2008)

Control Freak said:


> Dowmace,
> just curious all those bends and no pullboxes or condulets???????
> 
> just joking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> ...


hey I don't make the calls on commercial jobs I just did what the boss man said!:whistling2:


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## bburnette (Apr 13, 2008)

the aluminum was half the weight to the pulling force was much lower. We had no problems with the Al wire. The main thing was the cost. Saved $160,000 smackers. I think the Al will be OK. We will go back and do a thermal scan and look for hot spots.


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## bburnette (Apr 13, 2008)

anybody tried aluminum THHN ? You can get than in Simpull too. Given the price and light weight , seems like the way to go.


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## Mountain Electrician (Jan 22, 2007)

sparkysteve said:


> We pulled some in today. 350' of 350 mcm. No lube just as they claim. Absolutely amazing stuff. No lube! Pulled in better than regular wire with lube. No mess. Too bad we can't tell newbies that there's a free set of strippers at the bottom of the lube bucket.  Our boss wanted to try it out, the foreman says he'll order more. EC&M has a free DVD about it in the issue I got yesterday. I'm not sure if it costs more, but it should save some labor. http://www.southwire.com/processGetPage.do?bp=spthhn_featuredProduct.jsp



My supplier says its about 4% higher across the board, but IMO well worth it.


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