• HubertManne
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    12 days ago

    So what I have seen is these machines that push them through earth. We do get a lot of commercials in the area telling people to call a number before they do any digging on their property. They come out and mark where the cables are. We did end up having a condo thing where power was knocked out because the guy mismarked the area. He actually came back after and tried to put correct markings in. I heard he got fired.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 day ago

      Yeah, directional thrusting is a thing. It was used a lot when contractors were installing NZ’s new fibre network about a decade ago. I don’t think it’s in as widespread usage for power because power cables tend to have much wider bending radii.

      • HubertManne
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        11 day ago

        This sorta surprises me as I would think the fiberoptic would be worse than copper. I guess the thing ones could roll up pretty good but we had to be much more careful with them than the copper internet at least.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 day ago

          Fibre needs bigger bend radii proportional to the cable size, but they’re still rarely over 15mm diameter cables so you can bend them in like 150mm.

          Once you start getting to 11kV MV cables, they do like 2m bend radii.