MDShunk

The following picture shows men installing parking lot lighting from a JLG boom lift. Special thanks to Derek Pasch, Staffing Specialist at Meisner Electric in Delray Beach, FL for the pictures. The fella on the left must have been on break. He appears to be asleep.

Joe Momma

Or perhaps just scared of heights and trying not to puke.

Were they raising the poles with the snorkel lift or just attaching heads?
We did them from a JLG once, but they wre on wood poles, normally we mount the heads on the ground and have a crane out for a couple hours to raise all the poles.

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Joe Momma was here

MDShunk

Hard to tell.

I always bolt the heads on while on the ground, and go ahead and run the conductors down to the handhole and get everything wired up at the heads. That way, all you gotta do is stand them up and get them level. Myself, I generally get them all stood up and "eyeball level", then go back and fine tune level them all at once. Sometimes you need to tape a nickel to the end of your level to compensate for tapered posts. I know people have lots of different tricks for leveling tapered posts. Some guys hang a plumb bob at arm's length, and stand back and sight the post off that hanging plumb bob.

Joe Momma

We always hang them as fast as possible too, with crane costs and all. Last summer me and a JW I'm used to did 26 in less than 2 hours, we were pretty proud of ourselves. Then he leveled for the rest of the day while I wired (and fought wasps in one pole, I batted down at least 4 with a shovel I found).

I like that trick of taping a shim/nickel to the level. Once you get it set then all the poles will be the same.

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Joe Momma was here

Pinhead

Wow, those are really good tips.

perley03

What we generally do (this is our 3rd Lowe's this year, and have done a few other styles of lights in the past) is level the lugs first on the concrete pads. Then just stand up the built pole with either the boom truck or rent a crane and set them on, and then all you have to do is burndy the leads together. Most of the lights we do are either 277 or 480, 2awg to the base, 4awg from the base to the heads. Longest pull for the parking lot lights was 760' of 4awg, that one took a while with the old tugger just a tuggin.

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"Wire pullin', nut twist'n pipe bending light hanging crazy Mainah."

Pinhead

Why such large wire? Voltage drop? Thanks for your reply, it was very informative. Oh, never mind, I just re-read your post and see the extreme lengths of the runs. :-)

perley03

Use such wire because the engineers who designed the plans for Lowe's wanted to use them on the long pulls. On the shorter runs, I believe it's either 6 or 4awg to the base, 10awg to the heads. There is alot of overkill in these stores, I guess they didn't want to mess around.

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"Wire pullin', nut twist'n pipe bending light hanging crazy Mainah."

Pierre Belarge

Larger conductors have less heat loss...hence a savings of some $ during the use of the lights, which probably burn for quite a few hours each day. Long term savings for Lowes.

Speedy Petey

I did the parking lot lights for a Sam's/Lowes. MAN those were some long hard pulls.

perley's description is exactly how I do it.

480sparky

I've done some WalMart light runs that were fed with #0, #6 up the pole.

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I_get_shocked : Online now and knows where to look up the answer.

To anything!

reddog552

have worked on several TV towers 2000Ft 4/0 pulls for strobe lites.

nap

was that mostly up?

Celtic

Before we stand them up, we heat 'em up

If the bulb, ballast, etc turns out to NFG - it's a quick swap on terra firma

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nap

Not a bad idea there celtic.

HighWirey

On that tower work:

Any work you can perform on the ground is a plus. How much can a few strobes consume, even considering the VD, the 4/0, must have been aluminum, and must have been spec. Enlighten me here gents . . .

"was that mostly up?".
Cannot imagine feeding from the top down . . .

Best Wishes

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Be Safe Out there

Celtic

While going up in the lift is "oh so glamorous"....being the "re-do crew" in freezing weather is for the birds

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nap

I was referring more to was most of that 2000' running the tower as opposed to getting to the tower.

Top down? How could you ever so that?

HighWirey

Marc,

Meisner Electric came into central Florida like gangbusters, was awarded a large project from under us locals, learned their lession, then went back to Delray Beach. Seems it took ten years to settle their claims in court. My NASA contracting officer had a room full of court docs concerning that contact.

Correct me if it is not gospel.

Been incorrect before, and done that.

Best Wishes

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Be Safe Out there

reddog552

yes its up. we pre assemble 250' runs,then raise them to tower. this is quite tricky. The 3" rigid will crack at couplings.the reason for 250' ft runs is a strain releaf box+ light is required.We use a special rigging,lifting at 3 points.