Redoing the wire
Posted by sara (betsie's mom) on 05 Apr 2008 at 08:12 am | Tagged as: General
I am thinking about re-wiring the yard with new wire for this season. The wire I have always seems to have breaks in it that I can’t find easily. This is mostly because I used it at another house before moving here. Now that I’m not planning on moving again ANY time soon, it would be nice to have a more reliable perimeter. I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get Betsie out there mowing immediately so she wouldn’t chop the wire up, plus I think I would just bury it from the start.
Last time I bought wire from Del City and I think I opted for THHN 14 gauge solid/single strand. It has worked pretty well except for connecting to the charging house terminals, I had to do that with the Lawnbott supplied stranded wire to get it to keep a signal loop. The little springs that held the terminal clips in are long gone too. I usually have it covered with tape.
Anyone have advice for where to get more wire from or what to do about the terminals?
Check out the latest posting on bamabots.com under New User. The general consensus is that it’s best to go with the pegs until you get it working then put it under ground. My self I’d leave it top side and let the grass grow over it.
As far as the charger house connector goes I’d first try putting a 12 inch piece of stranded wire into the connector hole then using a piece of wooden dowel rod wedge it down along side of the wire making sure the connector pin makes contact. Maybe a couple of toothpicks will also work or a piece of solid copper wire. You could then attach the perimeter wire to the 12 inch piece. Do that for both pins.
If you can’t get a good connection then you can remove the tape from under the terminal house to get at the connector. Make sure you mark which is Red and which is Black so you don’t get the signal going the wrong direction. I’d solder the pigtails so you have a good connection.
Use stranded wire for the two pigtails as they will be easier to move around.
It doesn’t make any difference what you use for the perimeter wire, solid or stranded.
If you chose to go top side make sure you pin the wire every 18 inches or it will get clipped.
I pinned mine and there is only one spot where I can now see the wire. However, it’s a lot easer to find when I want to find it.
Note that one person suggested renting a cable pulling machine.
Have fun….toolbelt