Feeding a cable inside a mast

[Miker]

I've just bought a wind indicator and I want to feed the cable down the mast without taking it down. The mast is a Zspar which appears to have a conduit inside for cables. Any advice would be welcome for locating the top and bottom of the conduit? (Claymore - sensible advice, please.) I am replacing the VHF aerial and cable as well so I could put a feeder draw string in alongside that cable and somehow poke around to thread it through a separate hole top and bottom for the other cable. Or, I suppose, I could enlarge the holes to take both cables

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[squidge]

The answer is in your post, use a draw string,but replace it and leave it in when the jobs done so that you won't have the same problem the next time you want to change a cable.The fiddly bit is at the top unless you can remove the end./forums/images/icons/wink.gif

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[Gunfleet]

Claymore thinks he does give sensible advice

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[Sybarite]

One piece of advice I read a long time ago was to use a metallic tape measure fed into the lower hole to recover the draw string.

John

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[davidwf]

The conduit inside my Zspar is split along its length and then fed over a T shaped extrusion on the mast. It will be very hard to actually feed the cable down the conduit with the mast standing as the T section will impeed it.

The way it works is that to feed a cable into it you withdraw the conduit by sliding it out of the mast base, then run the cables. When you slide the conduit back into the mast it gathers up the cables into itsself. If your mast is the same I'd recommend simply dropping the cable down the inside of the mast until you next take the mast down, at which point you can sort out getting the cable into the conduit.

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[philwebb]

Get a short length of thick dog chain from a pet shop and attach this to the end
of your thin line. The chain will find its way past any small obstructions inside
the mast.
Regards Phil

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[beneteau_305_553]

On my Z spar mast there are two slots at the top of the mast that gives access to the conduit that runs down the inside of the mast. I had to add extra holes at the bottom though to bring the new cables out. Good idea to use the conduit if you can as it separates the halyards from the cables eliminating chaffe.

Z Spars have a good web site. email your question to them with the serial number etc. I found them very helpfull


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