Hey Everyone! I'm not going to have any free time at all this weekend to do any editing, but I figured I'd drag this one out of the archives! I've had a few asking to see the load buster in action (without looking away) as well as some questions about the proximity potential indicator 😁🤘. Oh and copper thievery is on the rise BIG time as of late, so if ya's see or hear of anything in your area...🚓🚓 Thanks!
So now we'll have an increase of convid deaths because they'll claim all the people who kill themselves stealing copper from live lines, died from convid instead of saying they died stealing copper. They want to play that up as long as they can and hid their poor performance as politicians allowing this crime increase.
@@mikeznel6048 Bull. COVID deaths are counted as COVID deaths and electrocutions are counted as electrocutions. P.s. - your tinfoil hat is off-center…. Might want to adjust that.
Bob, I have the utmost respect for you. You have a long career and you are extremely safe. And you work in the rain. Alot of people don't know, pure water is not a conductor. The minerals make the water a conductor. So, rain from evaporated water in clouds is not conductive. Distilled water could be an insulator. Long as those sleeves and gloves are clean, your good. But I've watched you and your channel, you'd be a good guy to put apprentice linemen with. You don't cut corners. Doing telecom linework I had a few errors and I know what causes deaths and accidents. Cutting corners. I had an incident lashing cable to bare strand on a long span. I knew the opposite end of the line rises when lashing. I hooked the rope to the outer rings and told my groundhands to pull out on the rope. I figured they understood what the deal was. They didn't. Halfway thru them pulling the lasher, I was pulling straps out of the pads on my hooks, and heard the " zzzzzzzz, pop pop pop snap snap" and saw blue. The idiots let tension loose and the line rose up into the secondary. And the secondary neutral is on top, not the bottom. It burned our line in two pieces. The hand kept snatching on it as if he was having fun, which was fine, but I didn't know what kind of rooes we had so I told him just let go of the rope. After having a coworker killed, all I saw in my head was my hand dropping to the ground DEAD because the rope was a conductor. It didn't happen of course, but like I said, after having a coworker killed, I just saw my griundhand dropping dead, in my head thats what I saw happening. The strand just burned in two pieces and the lasher smashed into the ground. But, I learned not to cut corners. I didn't use layup sticks to hold down on the line because it saved someone a long walk to the truck to get them, and I had too much faith in my groundhands thinking they'll hold pressure outwards. I had too much confidence in my hands. It happens. When I started linework, I had climbed two or three poles in my life. No pole climbing school. I had worked for a Bell Atlantic subsidiary and got pissed off because they cut off gaffing training before I got my turn. I HATED toting that big ass fiberglass ladder. So I bought my own gaffs, a set of Klein gaffs and used them only a couple times for Bell Atlantic. The third pole I climbed was like sixty feet and it was raining, I had my rainsuit on, we were doing an interstate crossing. But, I have confidence in myself to do things like that.
@@jonwillard3198 Almost. What comes out of the clouds isn’t pure; it’s picked up dust both when it condensed out of water vapor and on the way down. Also, water - even 100% pure lab-grade multiple-distilled water - will disassociate into a H+ ion and an OH- ion in small quantities. These effects give the water a very small amount of conductivity; and if you put enough voltage across it you can get measurable current flowing. Usually in practice it’s not enough to zap you or cause arcing on the equipment, but it is there. 🤔
Good Morning Aaron, The biggest issue with copper theft has been cut down grounds on equipment. They’ll reach under the plastic molding as high as they can reach & snip it with pliers from their standing position. Then cut at ground level. I have seen this multiple times on the same street. It’s completely random. I have seen it in good neighborhoods & bad neighborhoods. One time myself & another lineman were tasked with replacing down grounds in this one area on overtime. There was a rash of thefts in this one particular area. Company policy is to replace the entire down ground. No simple repairs because repairs could come apart? Well within short order we found a leaking overhead transformer in a 3 phase bank. By the time we had one delivered,cut & installed we got an all nighter out of it 😎
Caught a lot of SHITE from linemen over my two decades as a distribution planning engineer (electrical engineer), and while I often gave it back, I never lost any respect to these guys who keep your lights on. 100 years ago the mortality rate for US linemen was 50%, as half of them died on the job. Now it’s a far better stat, thankfully, but still one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Cheers Aaron. Love your channel.
Had an uncle who changed careers and became a natural gas engineer after witnessing an accident as a young apprentice. He was at a substation with two senior employees. One dropped a tool and instinctively bent over to pick it up, his head filled the air gap between two phases. He was killed instantly and the guy behind him died in the ensuing fireball. My uncle had burns but survived, saying 'that's it'.
I bought a house with a 2 story stairwell. Trying to finagle my long pole up there with a cleaning rag on the end of it while not going a- over teakettle down the stairs gives me so much respect for your skills on the electric line with that (doubtless much heavier) pole!
0:53 when you mentioned that it reminded me of my friends business that lost power on 3 phase. He had some electric motors on his crane and a transformer in his welder burn up.
They were single phasing when one other phase dropped out. That’s the scenario where motors could burn up? If they don’t get the voltage they need? They try to compensate by drawing more current burning up the windings.
A shop I worked at 30 years ago lost a 3000 compressor on the heat pump due to a phase loss and nobody would take any responsibility. The business wouldn't absorb the cost so we ended up sweating our asses off all summer and then freezing our balls off in the winter. Never did get fixed and we moved locations once the lease was up. The land lord said the business should pay for it, and the business owner insisted it was the land lord that was responsible so the work was never done. The power company took no responsibility because it was a bird that blew itself up on the transformer that caused the phase loss. I did notice that after they restored power they put up orange insulation covers on the primary lead between the top of the insulator and the cutout. That should have been done initially when the transformers were installed (It was a new building when we moved in)
@@12voltvids That’s terrible but sounds familiar. Today’s modern motors & machinery will lock out the device if they don’t sense 3 phases of power. Older machinery won’t. They’ll burn themselves out trying to run on 2 phases. We call that single phasing in the trade. When we arrive on scene of an emergency with wires down & it’s in a commercial zone we’ll pull the other doors open to prevent further motor damage. In your case it was caused by an animal (common). As for the animal guards? All new transformers already have animal guards on them. However stupid animals will try & push up on the guard & get electrocuted touching the hot phase while standing on the case which is grounded. As for additional animal guards? That’s discretionary? If there are frequent interruptions on that line from animal contact? They may install more animal guards at each location where there is a device. I have seen them go so far as to install plastic owls on crossarms where there are frequent issues with animals or birds.
@@johnclyne6350 this would have been I think around 1989 when this building was built but yep single-phasing killed the motor. We knew that we lost a phase because we heard a bang and of course 1/3 of everything in the store went out we lost lights out went out and other equipment went out and of course the HVAC system start making one hell of a racket but by the time and it was actually me got to the breaker panel which was in the stock room and turned off the breaker for the HVAC one of them had burned out and unfortunately it was the one that kept the shop cool. The other one for the retail side of the operation was still functional so they got to stay nice and cool but the text in the back we had to put up with sweltering heat in the summer and freezing cold in the winter because it was a combination AC and heat unit and the entire unit was offline and nobody fixed it.
I liked how at 1:55 your teammate on the ground extended the stick so that you could reach it from the bucket, but then you broke off the section that you needed. Not all sticks can be broken while extended. Very cool, thanks for sharing this trick. Also, when I was an electrician on a Submarine in the US Navy, we always had to check our meters on a live source before AND after checking something dead. Lastly, the most fun I ever had with sailors from another country were the Canadian sailors in Victoria! 👊
As you show clearly- stick to procedure. They are there for a reason. You are skillful at removing the overloads. Practice;) Thanks again for your time making videos.
Just found your channel about a week ago, I like your content. I am a 4th year commercial electrician apprentice. I mostly work in 3 phase 208Y/120 V and 480Y/277 V systems. It's cool to see what's on the other side of the service transformer. Stay safe!
I live in a town called Centralia. We have a company called A.B. Chance that makes the highline tools, the cutout boxes, switch gear, fuse links and anything else associated with electrical distribution. Enjoyed your video.
No way that's awesome! I used to live down in Centralia, Missouri. Small town roughly 4K people but yeah A.B Chance and nows it's solely called Hubbell right? Have a buddy that works at the electrical department there in town now as well.
Bob, I've watched you and you're a good guy to learn from. I did communication linework for a few years, and who you learn from is the key. I learned from a top notch lineman. He was never an electrical lineman though. He did streetlights and secondaries for one company, but straight telecom linework where I worked. We built new aerial plants from the satellite to the pole in front of your home. Biggest strand was 5/16 strand. I hated running the 5/16 strand due to the fact we got 7 cents a foot for pullin strand. I hated it. We'd have to load 5,000 feet of it which would pay us I think 140 dollars for the day. This is one of the reasons Ricky Hughes contacted 19,900 volts and lost his life. The only focus was run as much cable as possible. Safety was in YOUR hands. You know what to touch and what not to touch. Don't even touch the power neutral. Act as if it is live. Those lines are powerful, very. My coworkers said it sounded like a cannon went off when Ricky contacted 19,900 volts. But, im sure if you respect those lines, you'll have a nice long career.
Stay safe Aaron, Hope your area isn't hit too bad by the hurricane, and if you got some call's due to it we'd love to see some footage if you could manage, even if it is just footage of the damage caused and not the repair. Again, stay safe man, much love from Ontario.
Hey Aaron, very informative videos. I have recently mailed my application to NBCC for their upcoming PLT program intake. I've been busting my ass all summer preparing for the pre-entry testing, as I know this is the only trade I want to pursue a career in. Work safely, and I hope to one day cross paths on the line.
I like your comment about 3 phase equipment users having relays to prevent single phasing. I have seen lots of burnt out rooftop AC compressors from that and it is a big problem. I worked in a medium sized hospital and it got single phased when a drunk crashed into a major power pole and broke one wire. Major brownout. All my boiler feedwater pumps overheated as they started running backwards and it was a huge mess. We had a diesel generator backup but it takes a few seconds to startup so I hate the idea of single phasing.
Even if there are protection, the electrical company should prevent that. In my country switches on the poles are built in a way such that opening it it will open all 3 phases at the same moment. Also every three phase switch/breaker must be built in a way to prevent disconnecting all three phases. For that reason fuses are no longer used, at least on low voltage circuits, and on high voltage they have circuits to detect the loss of a phase and that interrupt the power to prevent damage.
Longtime lurker and fan of your work. You should take a tour of S&C in Toronto. Where they make alduti and omnis. I used to work there before joining an IOU, the Loadbuster PM is a buddy. LMK if that would be in your wheelhouse.
ran out of youtube so went down the shops - only took 25 minutes, thanks for uploading! * i don't want to pick up a political hot potato - i am just saying - when we had a plague of copper-thefts in the uk a number of years ago, much of it was determined to be the result of eastern-european gangs who had the technical knowledge and organisational hierarchy to do real damage to our infrastructure rather than our local hoodlums who would confine themselves to houses/construction sites and were more easily caught/prevented.
As always Aaron! Another well made video! 👊👊👊 I prefer to take the high side taps off the line incase the cutout leaks voltage. Every utility mandates a different procedure for isolating a line? On my first ground I connect my ground to the neutral & tap each de-energized phase to remove any compacitance. My first ground goes on the center phase, then jump the center to the road & the other from the center one to the field. We missed the grounding sequence in the video so some people were confused by what you meant? You had a groundman in your video. Usually you work “Hans Solo”. Since I’ve been in linework there has always been a load break tool. I’ve been in linework over thirty years. Just a little more than you.
Those tap wires are all copper. Those in the video look like #6 but #2 Cu is the most common. That size copper in open air can handle tremendous current.
Underground cable installations have problems all of their own. When they fail, the fault must be located, area dug up and repairs made. Try doing this in the rain, snow or dead of night. Not fun. Not all tree trimming requires taking lines out of service.
@@mikeznel6048 been doing 3 phase U/G splices for 2 weeks, your right, it’s a pain, thankfully splices have come along way! Pretty much all Pre made and cold shrink, some cable prep, they still have their quirks tho
What type of voltage detector is that? We have the Salisbury with the twist knobs. They get kind of aggravating with the class 2 or 3 gloves and trying to twist the knob to the different settings. Plus the readings on the dial are hard to see. I like how that one was push button , it seems very user friendly.
Thanks enginelife! Looking at the pole from the side my truck is parked on, to my right is where the power is fed from. Most times the lead on the top side of the cutout is the source, but not always
Worked on a three phase 480 power supply which converts and supplies DC at very high amperage. It had a circuit to shut down the supply when a phase is missing or out of sequence. Curious why (or maybe just didn't film it) you didn't ground the dead side to eliminate any inductance voltages.
After you check all 3 phases for potential, do you check against a known live source afterwards to verify the meter didn't fail during the check on the dead side?
When would grounds be installed? I understand this is being done as a precaution for work near the lines. I'm assuming if work was being done on the lines, that's when it would be grounded?
If you are repairing primary off hooks would be one situation. If a tree trimmer needed to cut a tree physically laying on the lines might be another depending on policy.
I’ve never seen the hot stick attachment your using to break contact of the fuses. Why not use the yellow link stick for the whole job? It’s all I ever use
As the door opened it would draw an arc. Without getting technical, more load = bigger arc. Our standard is more than 10 amps on the primary system requires load break. If theres enough amperage, the arc won't extinguish even when the door is fully open. It will move around as it ionizes the air around it allowing it to grow in size until either air resistance becomes too much and it goes out or it connects with ground/another phases which spike spike the current and trip the line
Why wouldn’t you rotate the load buster to the inside on the middle phase… idk it looked close to the outside phase. but everything looked great love the channel
I hope this has never happened to you, but if someone were to run in to a utility truck while the operator's all the way up on the boom -- how badly injured could the operator get? What safety mechanisms are there?
On MAWP OSHA requires everyone to wear a fall harness, so any unexpected movement of the platform you can’t be thrown out and to the ground. Not sure what’s expected in a boom truck, but would hope the same rules apply.
Absolutely Fall arrest at all times! This a 50kph (30 mph) zone, not that it means much nowadays... But there are impact trailers used and barricades when working around high speeds.
Yes. Always bring your “line side” or source to the top of your cutout. And “load side” out from the bottom. This practice makes sure the only thing energized is the top of the cutout when the barrel is out. Say you are refusing a cutout with the reverse, then when you sit your barrel in the cutout it will become energized, and you have an extra hazard.
currently a 21 yr old in the US navy, i work with electronics but on the aviation side, and want to do this when i get out. im sure canada is different than the US but you havy any pointers or tips for how i should go about it?
You are brave to stop your truck on a main road with only some cones as protection. I would have expected to have at least some truck or blinking sign as sort of crashbarrier behind your woking area...
at video time 45 seconds i see that there is a 3 phase. how do you know the voltage of those? or even if there are 2 primary's. so i guess my question would be, how do you know the voltage of primary's?
I climbed trees along the river and jumped out of them to prepare for it. But at the end of the day it wasn’t that bad, you get comfortable really quickly.
Interesting that you shut it off to trim trees, when the power companies have done that kind of work here they just hack small chunks off around the live wires.
I work in 230kv transformer Station crew and a few of our stations have 44kv single phase disconnects that fucking pop when you pull em like that. Barely any load on them because breaker is already open but still cool
Still confused. No Neutral running along with these 3 transmission/distribution lines. But, when showing us a branch circuit with only one phase, you point out a neutral running along with in. In fact, you jumper the phase to the neutral to insure no potential. So why the neutral on the branch circuit. Thank you.
The neutral within the triplex is oversized and shared by both the high and low voltage in the system. Many of our lines in town are built with triplex from pole to pole as opposed to a single aluminum wire. This allows 1 larger transformer to pick up services to houses across 2 or 3 poles. When grounding or bonding the line, we use the neutral on the triplex, which is also grounded at every pole (on our system))
@@Bobsdecline Isn't the shared neutral a big danger? In case the neutral got broken for some reason you can potentially have high voltage on the low voltage circuit. In my country high voltage doesn't have a neutral, just the three phases. Primary of the high to low voltage transformer is completely isolated.
The electricity traveled through the loadbuster device up until an internal spring mechanism snaps and disconnects the load very quickly. I posted a video approx a year ago with some more details
And as usual, as I watch I have a question. And your next sentence answers the question. (In this case, the question was, "Shouldn't you switch all three phases at the same time to prevent problems?")
From what I've learned at Line School so far is the 3 phases aren't connected together they operate separately Phase A, B, and C so if phase C shuts off it won't affect phase A, and B which is why you can operate the cutouts one phase at a time. But I could be wrong im only in line school so if I am someone please correct me so I can learn some more.
In a nutshell - Equipment that uses 3 phases will attempt to operate on the 2 remaining phases and cause damage. Voltage can also back feed through some 3 phases equipment causing a low voltage on the open phase. Much the same as on a house with 3 wire Edison - remove 1 phase while the breaker is closed and a water heater hooked up, and you'll see 70 ish volts on the open phase
Howdy Arron. Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Today, 20 years ago, we lost thousands of poor souls due to the action of middle eastern terrorists. Let us never forget those innocent lives lost that day. God bless and stay safe buddy. Best of wishes to you and your family.
I cannot believe that none of the cars are slowing down for you working on the side of the road. That would scare me more than working with the powerlines!!!
Hey Everyone!
I'm not going to have any free time at all this weekend to do any editing, but I figured I'd drag this one out of the archives! I've had a few asking to see the load buster in action (without looking away) as well as some questions about the proximity potential indicator 😁🤘.
Oh and copper thievery is on the rise BIG time as of late, so if ya's see or hear of anything in your area...🚓🚓 Thanks!
So now we'll have an increase of convid deaths because they'll claim all the people who kill themselves stealing copper from live lines, died from convid instead of saying they died stealing copper. They want to play that up as long as they can and hid their poor performance as politicians allowing this crime increase.
@@mikeznel6048 Bull. COVID deaths are counted as COVID deaths and electrocutions are counted as electrocutions.
P.s. - your tinfoil hat is off-center…. Might want to adjust that.
Bob, I have the utmost respect for you. You have a long career and you are extremely safe. And you work in the rain. Alot of people don't know, pure water is not a conductor. The minerals make the water a conductor. So, rain from evaporated water in clouds is not conductive. Distilled water could be an insulator. Long as those sleeves and gloves are clean, your good. But I've watched you and your channel, you'd be a good guy to put apprentice linemen with. You don't cut corners. Doing telecom linework I had a few errors and I know what causes deaths and accidents. Cutting corners. I had an incident lashing cable to bare strand on a long span. I knew the opposite end of the line rises when lashing. I hooked the rope to the outer rings and told my groundhands to pull out on the rope. I figured they understood what the deal was. They didn't. Halfway thru them pulling the lasher, I was pulling straps out of the pads on my hooks, and heard the " zzzzzzzz, pop pop pop snap snap" and saw blue. The idiots let tension loose and the line rose up into the secondary. And the secondary neutral is on top, not the bottom. It burned our line in two pieces. The hand kept snatching on it as if he was having fun, which was fine, but I didn't know what kind of rooes we had so I told him just let go of the rope. After having a coworker killed, all I saw in my head was my hand dropping to the ground DEAD because the rope was a conductor. It didn't happen of course, but like I said, after having a coworker killed, I just saw my griundhand dropping dead, in my head thats what I saw happening. The strand just burned in two pieces and the lasher smashed into the ground. But, I learned not to cut corners. I didn't use layup sticks to hold down on the line because it saved someone a long walk to the truck to get them, and I had too much faith in my groundhands thinking they'll hold pressure outwards. I had too much confidence in my hands. It happens. When I started linework, I had climbed two or three poles in my life. No pole climbing school. I had worked for a Bell Atlantic subsidiary and got pissed off because they cut off gaffing training before I got my turn. I HATED toting that big ass fiberglass ladder. So I bought my own gaffs, a set of Klein gaffs and used them only a couple times for Bell Atlantic. The third pole I climbed was like sixty feet and it was raining, I had my rainsuit on, we were doing an interstate crossing. But, I have confidence in myself to do things like that.
@@jonwillard3198 Almost. What comes out of the clouds isn’t pure; it’s picked up dust both when it condensed out of water vapor and on the way down. Also, water - even 100% pure lab-grade multiple-distilled water - will disassociate into a H+ ion and an OH- ion in small quantities. These effects give the water a very small amount of conductivity; and if you put enough voltage across it you can get measurable current flowing. Usually in practice it’s not enough to zap you or cause arcing on the equipment, but it is there. 🤔
Good Morning Aaron,
The biggest issue with copper theft has been cut down grounds on equipment. They’ll reach under the plastic molding as high as they can reach & snip it with pliers from their standing position. Then cut at ground level. I have seen this multiple times on the same street. It’s completely random. I have seen it in good neighborhoods & bad neighborhoods. One time myself & another lineman were tasked with replacing down grounds in this one area on overtime. There was a rash of thefts in this one particular area. Company policy is to replace the entire down ground. No simple repairs because repairs could come apart? Well within short order we found a leaking overhead transformer in a 3 phase bank. By the time we had one delivered,cut & installed we got an all nighter out of it 😎
Caught a lot of SHITE from linemen over my two decades as a distribution planning engineer (electrical engineer), and while I often gave it back, I never lost any respect to these guys who keep your lights on. 100 years ago the mortality rate for US linemen was 50%, as half of them died on the job. Now it’s a far better stat, thankfully, but still one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
Cheers Aaron. Love your channel.
Had an uncle who changed careers and became a natural gas engineer after witnessing an accident as a young apprentice. He was at a substation with two senior employees. One dropped a tool and instinctively bent over to pick it up, his head filled the air gap between two phases. He was killed instantly and the guy behind him died in the ensuing fireball. My uncle had burns but survived, saying 'that's it'.
I'm a retired Lineman of 42 years. I used the load break tool for many of those years. They work perfect if they are maintained and used properly.
Balls of steel doing that job, i can only salute you
I bought a house with a 2 story stairwell. Trying to finagle my long pole up there with a cleaning rag on the end of it while not going a- over teakettle down the stairs gives me so much respect for your skills on the electric line with that (doubtless much heavier) pole!
Pretty sure those are fiber glass so light than you'd imagine
@@mtp1990 the load buster would probably make it a good bit heavy, but I could be wrong
0:53 when you mentioned that it reminded me of my friends business that lost power on 3 phase. He had some electric motors on his crane and a transformer in his welder burn up.
I have heard of 2 phase airconditioners burn up for the same reason.
They were single phasing when one other phase dropped out. That’s the scenario where motors could burn up? If they don’t get the voltage they need? They try to compensate by drawing more current burning up the windings.
A shop I worked at 30 years ago lost a 3000 compressor on the heat pump due to a phase loss and nobody would take any responsibility. The business wouldn't absorb the cost so we ended up sweating our asses off all summer and then freezing our balls off in the winter. Never did get fixed and we moved locations once the lease was up. The land lord said the business should pay for it, and the business owner insisted it was the land lord that was responsible so the work was never done. The power company took no responsibility because it was a bird that blew itself up on the transformer that caused the phase loss. I did notice that after they restored power they put up orange insulation covers on the primary lead between the top of the insulator and the cutout. That should have been done initially when the transformers were installed (It was a new building when we moved in)
@@12voltvids That’s terrible but sounds familiar. Today’s modern motors & machinery will lock out the device if they don’t sense 3 phases of power. Older machinery won’t. They’ll burn themselves out trying to run on 2 phases. We call that single phasing in the trade. When we arrive on scene of an emergency with wires down & it’s in a commercial zone we’ll pull the other doors open to prevent further motor damage. In your case it was caused by an animal (common). As for the animal guards? All new transformers already have animal guards on them. However stupid animals will try & push up on the guard & get electrocuted touching the hot phase while standing on the case which is grounded. As for additional animal guards? That’s discretionary? If there are frequent interruptions on that line from animal contact? They may install more animal guards at each location where there is a device. I have seen them go so far as to install plastic owls on crossarms where there are frequent issues with animals or birds.
@@johnclyne6350 this would have been I think around 1989 when this building was built but yep single-phasing killed the motor. We knew that we lost a phase because we heard a bang and of course 1/3 of everything in the store went out we lost lights out went out and other equipment went out and of course the HVAC system start making one hell of a racket but by the time and it was actually me got to the breaker panel which was in the stock room and turned off the breaker for the HVAC one of them had burned out and unfortunately it was the one that kept the shop cool. The other one for the retail side of the operation was still functional so they got to stay nice and cool but the text in the back we had to put up with sweltering heat in the summer and freezing cold in the winter because it was a combination AC and heat unit and the entire unit was offline and nobody fixed it.
I liked how at 1:55 your teammate on the ground extended the stick so that you could reach it from the bucket, but then you broke off the section that you needed. Not all sticks can be broken while extended. Very cool, thanks for sharing this trick. Also, when I was an electrician on a Submarine in the US Navy, we always had to check our meters on a live source before AND after checking something dead. Lastly, the most fun I ever had with sailors from another country were the Canadian sailors in Victoria! 👊
That's the main reason I like this particular brand of extendo!
👊👊
Not a lineman, but I've always had a fascination with the grid. Now I can pretend I know what I'm looking at. Love the channel.
Thanks Richard!
3:21 Make sure the base of the stick is clear.
Whatever dude! I'm never going near any of this stuff. Glad we have guys like you doing it. Great vid!
Hey, so cool to see, I worked the lines 40yrs ago, both overhead and underground, hot connections on both lv and hv, stay safe man
Thanks! Cheers 🍻
As you show clearly- stick to procedure. They are there for a reason. You are skillful at removing the overloads. Practice;)
Thanks again for your time making videos.
Just found your channel about a week ago, I like your content. I am a 4th year commercial electrician apprentice. I mostly work in 3 phase 208Y/120 V and 480Y/277 V systems. It's cool to see what's on the other side of the service transformer. Stay safe!
I live in a town called Centralia. We have a company called A.B. Chance that makes the highline tools, the cutout boxes, switch gear, fuse links and anything else associated with electrical distribution. Enjoyed your video.
No way that's awesome! I used to live down in Centralia, Missouri. Small town roughly 4K people but yeah A.B Chance and nows it's solely called Hubbell right? Have a buddy that works at the electrical department there in town now as well.
Bob, I've watched you and you're a good guy to learn from. I did communication linework for a few years, and who you learn from is the key. I learned from a top notch lineman. He was never an electrical lineman though. He did streetlights and secondaries for one company, but straight telecom linework where I worked. We built new aerial plants from the satellite to the pole in front of your home. Biggest strand was 5/16 strand. I hated running the 5/16 strand due to the fact we got 7 cents a foot for pullin strand. I hated it. We'd have to load 5,000 feet of it which would pay us I think 140 dollars for the day. This is one of the reasons Ricky Hughes contacted 19,900 volts and lost his life. The only focus was run as much cable as possible. Safety was in YOUR hands. You know what to touch and what not to touch. Don't even touch the power neutral. Act as if it is live. Those lines are powerful, very. My coworkers said it sounded like a cannon went off when Ricky contacted 19,900 volts. But, im sure if you respect those lines, you'll have a nice long career.
It is always interesting to see what you are doing. Things you won't see in the Netherlands.
Stay safe Aaron, Hope your area isn't hit too bad by the hurricane, and if you got some call's due to it we'd love to see some footage if you could manage, even if it is just footage of the damage caused and not the repair. Again, stay safe man, much love from Ontario.
Hey Aaron, very informative videos. I have recently mailed my application to NBCC for their upcoming PLT program intake. I've been busting my ass all summer preparing for the pre-entry testing, as I know this is the only trade I want to pursue a career in. Work safely, and I hope to one day cross paths on the line.
Pretty decent video.
99.9% of all mishaps could be avoided by following good practices. ALWAYS!
As a firefighter here in the USA 🇺🇸 I have to most respect for these line men and women
I like your comment about 3 phase equipment users having relays to prevent single phasing. I have seen lots of burnt out rooftop AC compressors from that and it is a big problem.
I worked in a medium sized hospital and it got single phased when a drunk crashed into a major power pole and broke one wire. Major brownout.
All my boiler feedwater pumps overheated as they started running backwards and it was a huge mess. We had a diesel generator backup but it takes a few seconds to startup so I hate the idea of single phasing.
Even if there are protection, the electrical company should prevent that. In my country switches on the poles are built in a way such that opening it it will open all 3 phases at the same moment. Also every three phase switch/breaker must be built in a way to prevent disconnecting all three phases. For that reason fuses are no longer used, at least on low voltage circuits, and on high voltage they have circuits to detect the loss of a phase and that interrupt the power to prevent damage.
The load buster is pretty nice. I was on storm and we had to just rip one open with solid doors cause we were in a bind and it was an emergency.
Great vid as always!!
Thanks for the videos. Now I’ll know how to disconnect service without having to wait for utilities to do it for me. Very helpful!
Longtime lurker and fan of your work. You should take a tour of S&C in Toronto. Where they make alduti and omnis. I used to work there before joining an IOU, the Loadbuster PM is a buddy. LMK if that would be in your wheelhouse.
ran out of youtube so went down the shops - only took 25 minutes, thanks for uploading!
* i don't want to pick up a political hot potato - i am just saying - when we had a plague of copper-thefts in the uk a number of years ago, much of it was determined to be the result of eastern-european gangs who had the technical knowledge and organisational hierarchy to do real damage to our infrastructure rather than our local hoodlums who would confine themselves to houses/construction sites and were more easily caught/prevented.
Thanks for the upload.
As always Aaron! Another well made video! 👊👊👊 I prefer to take the high side taps off the line incase the cutout leaks voltage. Every utility mandates a different procedure for isolating a line? On my first ground I connect my ground to the neutral & tap each de-energized phase to remove any compacitance. My first ground goes on the center phase, then jump the center to the road & the other from the center one to the field. We missed the grounding sequence in the video so some people were confused by what you meant?
You had a groundman in your video. Usually you work “Hans Solo”.
Since I’ve been in linework there has always been a load break tool. I’ve been in linework over thirty years. Just a little more than you.
Surprised the necklace is acceptable, nice vid
Why are the the short lines that connect to the switch so much smaller in diameter than the main ACSR cables? Great vid & beautiful town!
I'm not an expert but maybe the little wires are Cu instead of Al. In either case the short wires don't need the steel reinforcement.
Those tap wires are all copper. Those in the video look like #6 but #2 Cu is the most common. That size copper in open air can handle tremendous current.
@@ucfsub Makes sense! Thanks for replying!!!
💯! Our standard is #2 copper for a side line switch with 100amp cut out doors and #4 copper for a transformer lead.
I'm imagining pro/con on overhead. Those regions with lots of growth should reduce maintenance whith cables dug in ?
No its more expensive and costs more to repair, upgrade or modify tie in.
Underground cable installations have problems all of their own. When they fail, the fault must be located, area dug up and repairs made. Try doing this in the rain, snow or dead of night. Not fun.
Not all tree trimming requires taking lines out of service.
@@mikeznel6048 been doing 3 phase U/G splices for 2 weeks, your right, it’s a pain, thankfully splices have come along way! Pretty much all Pre made and cold shrink, some cable prep, they still have their quirks tho
Very cool
What type of voltage detector is that? We have the Salisbury with the twist knobs. They get kind of aggravating with the class 2 or 3 gloves and trying to twist the knob to the different settings. Plus the readings on the dial are hard to see. I like how that one was push button , it seems very user friendly.
My fear of heights is so bad, I was puckered just watching this...
is each phase 7600 volts or 13,000?
Are they a hundred and twenty degrees out of phase with each other?
7200 phase to ground and 120° out for a line voltage of 12470.
@@Bobsdecline 12,470 is measured between any 2 lines?
@@Bobsdecline Please consider a quick whiteboard explanation of the three wires. I think it'd be very helpful to all of us.
@@mobilecommunicationsnetwor5268 Looking forward.
What kind of glove covers are those ?
What glasses do you wear I’m looking for some that work best for the sun
Always chech the phases and all 3 phases with earth here in the netherlands
0:08 aboooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot
Is that necklace non-conductive?
What do you mean by the right hand side is the source? Awsome video man!!!!!
Thanks enginelife!
Looking at the pole from the side my truck is parked on, to my right is where the power is fed from.
Most times the lead on the top side of the cutout is the source, but not always
Worked on a three phase 480 power supply which converts and supplies DC at very high amperage. It had a circuit to shut down the supply when a phase is missing or out of sequence. Curious why (or maybe just didn't film it) you didn't ground the dead side to eliminate any inductance voltages.
What kind of voltage do you have for the local networks? In Germany we have 10kV in cities and 20kV across the country
After you check all 3 phases for potential, do you check against a known live source afterwards to verify the meter didn't fail during the check on the dead side?
When would grounds be installed? I understand this is being done as a precaution for work near the lines. I'm assuming if work was being done on the lines, that's when it would be grounded?
There is a common adage " it ain't dead til it's grounded"
If you are repairing primary off hooks would be one situation. If a tree trimmer needed to cut a tree physically laying on the lines might be another depending on policy.
Doors = Nefwie for Fuse? I'm also confused as to why the shotgun stick was not sufficient to remove said fuse
Good job... I don't even like plugging in a lamp
Is it your company policy to stick in rubber gloves? Or just personal preference?
I’ve never seen the hot stick attachment your using to break contact of the fuses. Why not use the yellow link stick for the whole job? It’s all I ever use
That device is for breaking load on the line. It snuffs any potential arc. The Arc can easily cause a phase to phase fault.
If you don't mind me asking did you go to college or anything for this job
👊👊
We always remove our taps after opening
so what would happen if you didnt use the loadbuster? and just the other stick
As the door opened it would draw an arc. Without getting technical, more load = bigger arc. Our standard is more than 10 amps on the primary system requires load break.
If theres enough amperage, the arc won't extinguish even when the door is fully open. It will move around as it ionizes the air around it allowing it to grow in size until either air resistance becomes too much and it goes out or it connects with ground/another phases which spike spike the current and trip the line
Why wouldn’t you rotate the load buster to the inside on the middle phase… idk it looked close to the outside phase. but everything looked great love the channel
I hope this has never happened to you, but if someone were to run in to a utility truck while the operator's all the way up on the boom -- how badly injured could the operator get? What safety mechanisms are there?
On MAWP OSHA requires everyone to wear a fall harness, so any unexpected movement of the platform you can’t be thrown out and to the ground. Not sure what’s expected in a boom truck, but would hope the same rules apply.
Absolutely Fall arrest at all times!
This a 50kph (30 mph) zone, not that it means much nowadays... But there are impact trailers used and barricades when working around high speeds.
@@Bobsdecline I imagine it'd be pretty difficult for a utility truck to be rolled over by impact with the boom extended all the way?
@@HighMansx More like imagine a catapult if the truck gets hit. Boing
Thanx. I never get tired of learning stuff. Could you get a different mic system? Too much traffic noise covers your speech.
Does anyone know if it is standardized that the top of the cutout is connected to what would be considered the supply side of the line?
Yes, it is a standard.
Yes. Always bring your “line side” or source to the top of your cutout. And “load side” out from the bottom. This practice makes sure the only thing energized is the top of the cutout when the barrel is out. Say you are refusing a cutout with the reverse, then when you sit your barrel in the cutout it will become energized, and you have an extra hazard.
currently a 21 yr old in the US navy, i work with electronics but on the aviation side, and want to do this when i get out. im sure canada is different than the US but you havy any pointers or tips for how i should go about it?
You are brave to stop your truck on a main road with only some cones as protection. I would have expected to have at least some truck or blinking sign as sort of crashbarrier behind your woking area...
test and touch ground be safe!
at video time 45 seconds i see that there is a 3 phase. how do you know the voltage of those? or even if there are 2 primary's. so i guess my question would be, how do you know the voltage of primary's?
Do most people who do linework already know they dont have any fear of heights,or are there people who need to get used to it at first?
I climbed trees along the river and jumped out of them to prepare for it. But at the end of the day it wasn’t that bad, you get comfortable really quickly.
Have you ever dropped a pole when up in the bucket
Interesting that you shut it off to trim trees, when the power companies have done that kind of work here they just hack small chunks off around the live wires.
Matthew Yes, they do a terrible job trimming the trees. Hack BIG CHUNKS out of
middle of the tree. No shape to the final product.
I work in 230kv transformer Station crew and a few of our stations have 44kv single phase disconnects that fucking pop when you pull em like that. Barely any load on them because breaker is already open but still cool
I find it odd the union let's u record while working
Still confused. No Neutral running along with these 3 transmission/distribution lines.
But, when showing us a branch circuit with only one phase, you point out
a neutral running along with in. In fact, you jumper the phase to the neutral to insure
no potential. So why the neutral on the branch circuit. Thank you.
The neutral within the triplex is oversized and shared by both the high and low voltage in the system.
Many of our lines in town are built with triplex from pole to pole as opposed to a single aluminum wire. This allows 1 larger transformer to pick up services to houses across 2 or 3 poles.
When grounding or bonding the line, we use the neutral on the triplex, which is also grounded at every pole (on our system))
@@Bobsdecline Isn't the shared neutral a big danger? In case the neutral got broken for some reason you can potentially have high voltage on the low voltage circuit.
In my country high voltage doesn't have a neutral, just the three phases. Primary of the high to low voltage transformer is completely isolated.
Most dangerous thing in this video is the traffic.
allahu bless you care and health for work I am Indian (Kerala)god's own country Lineman Navas
ABOAT ...19 years aye? 😅
It gets confusing for us when working near a Marina 🤷♂️
Why didn't it arc
The electricity traveled through the loadbuster device up until an internal spring mechanism snaps and disconnects the load very quickly.
I posted a video approx a year ago with some more details
And as usual, as I watch I have a question. And your next sentence answers the question. (In this case, the question was, "Shouldn't you switch all three phases at the same time to prevent problems?")
From what I've learned at Line School so far is the 3 phases aren't connected together they operate separately Phase A, B, and C so if phase C shuts off it won't affect phase A, and B which is why you can operate the cutouts one phase at a time. But I could be wrong im only in line school so if I am someone please correct me so I can learn some more.
In a nutshell -
Equipment that uses 3 phases will attempt to operate on the 2 remaining phases and cause damage.
Voltage can also back feed through some 3 phases equipment causing a low voltage on the open phase.
Much the same as on a house with 3 wire Edison - remove 1 phase while the breaker is closed and a water heater hooked up, and you'll see 70 ish volts on the open phase
We in Michigan just lost a lineman
Sorry for your loss. Dangerous jobs out there.
Brutal, sorry for your loss.
When temporary grounds are NOT applied the line may be de energized but is never dead, only after grounds are applied is the line dead..!
Howdy Arron. Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Today, 20 years ago, we lost thousands of poor souls due to the action of middle eastern terrorists. Let us never forget those innocent lives lost that day. God bless and stay safe buddy. Best of wishes to you and your family.
A great message Mike! Hope all is well with you and the family
With Tic Tracer I prefer Live Dead Live
I really don’t understand using primary gloves in conjunction with a hot stick . But nice job with load buster btw
No braces? Congrats
Wait, yall shut off the power to trim for the power lines? So weird hearing that when yourself trims are live power lines
I cannot believe that none of the cars are slowing down for you working on the side of the road. That would scare me more than working with the powerlines!!!