Conclavicus raised that perennial issue: messed up ( crossed over ) paralleled conductors in a recent thread.
So it's high time to post the magic solution that forever prevents this from ever happening to you.
1) Forget about phasing the parallel conductors during the pull. It's a total waste of time and tape. It actually slows you down - - a LOT.
2) Land all of your paralleled conductors as if they were all fully phase colored -- and correct -- on the Service side of the connection -- because that's where you're going to bring the neutral and the grounding conductor together as part of the GEC System.
2a) Go right ahead and beautifully band them in their glory.
3) The grounding conductor -- in paralleled schemes never seems to ever be the same size as the current carrying conductors. So it's a no-brainer to spot it.
It will obviously read as in continuity with the landed, grounded, neutral conductors. So they are the first to be landed and banded. This is also nice, because virtually every time, they have the furthest distance to reach -- as in the neutral bar// rail.
4) Now you've got 3 snakes pouring out of every hole -- that need to be phased. If you get the first two right, the third takes care of itself.
You always start with red-blue or orange-yellow, working B and C phases, that's your hope. 1/3rd of the time you find A phase first, oh, well.
If solo, at this point you must pace back and forth. As a team ( cell phones ) it's a snap.
You jumper an unknown conductor out of your first 'hole' ( pipe) to the neutral bus -- with the breaker back at the Service turned off.
It's then VERY short work to establish which conductor suddenly has a ground fault at its circuit breaker. You hope that you've picked blue or red -- but -- whatever -- you note what's up and note the conductor at the load side.
This is repeated with your second conductor.
The third is a snap, but of course.
5) Once the first hole is doped out -- it's a simple matter to hunt for continuity -- conductor by conductor -- as you identify each one and immediately land it in turn.
The reason this method is so much faster is that you don't bother with taping during the pulling process.
I've seen crews tape and tape and tape -- as the conductors proved to be a tad long (insurance) -- and Yellow 77 is all over everything.
Testing for continuity goes so FAST. Especially in our day of CELL PHONES.
You only touch the matter once. You can trim the conductors to look pretty -- only then to wrap them in phasing tape, after they've been wiped clean.
6) Your last step is going to always involve a snap check to make sure that no paralleled phase is connected to another -- or to the grounded phase.
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You would not BELIEVE the amount of crew time wasted while one fellow phases paralleled conductors BEFORE a pull. You've got the ENTIRE pulling crew sitting on their cans while this step is taken.
Whereas, it only takes one man -- and perhaps two -- to correctly phase paralleled runs -- every time with the scheme detailed here.
Anyone without a DMM goes to the back of the class. :laughing:
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For secondaries, there will be no grounding conductor. So you'll just have to use a trick I'm not going to spell out here.
Heh.
Let's see how smart you really are.