SNOW!

[Jerry Rapp]

57 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

What causes transformers to blow like that ?  

Can't they put a fuse/circuit breaker in those things to prevent that from happening?     I have one so close to my house that I can spit on it from my front deck.    The stupid thing makes me nervous every time it storms.   

what netboy said.  In our case it wasn't the transformer and was the fuse like thing that they fixed in about 20 minutes using the long pole.  There several transformers replaced around the area, along with several stretches of wire where trees fell on them.  

[BilletHead]

54 minutes ago, Jerry Rapp said:

what netboy said.  In our case it wasn't the transformer and was the fuse like thing that they fixed in about 20 minutes using the long pole.  There several transformers replaced around the area, along with several stretches of wire where trees fell on them.  

@fishinwrench, @netboy and @Jerry Rapp,

    We are talking about what I did for a living for many years. Let's start at a substation.  Transmission lines come into a Substation. These transmission likes come in at 161 thousand volts, 69 thousand, 34 thousand or even higher voltages. At this point they go into big transformers that change voltage down into one or more feeders that feed three phase lines. At this point they are attached to reclosers that are in essence circuit breakers. They protect the feeder from faults caused by many things like storms, load and some dumb arse running in to a pole taking down the feeder. These reclosers will reset three times before locking out when a fourth fault happens. The fourth hit will fully lock it out and shut down the power. Further down each individual feeder are other OCR's which are again a recloser that can lock out a line for a fault. They are set to isolate a fault downstream on these feeders as to not go all the way back to the substation and take out the whole line or circuit. So, for further protection we have two other things. So, if we tapped off a three-phase line called a lateral making it single phase that takes power to one or hundreds or more customers there would be a single phase recloser for lots of customers or a refusable cutout to protect the line. For a few customers there would be a cutout, for many customers, the reclosure that would again protect the line by letting the fault hit three times and on the fourth lock out the line. Some faults clear themselves. Like bird, squirrel or other vermin on the pole causing a fault. Sometimes a tree limb will burn into, and the fault will clear. All of these things protect lives and property. So now we are down to the transformers we all are fed from for our homes and businesses. Businesses and things that need a set of transformers that need three phase power are fed off of two or three transformers. These will be protected with two or three refusable cutouts. For home power a single transformer with a single refusable cutout protects the incoming line and you and your property in case of a fault. Note a single transformer can be small and run just one household or several of you and your neighbors.  Line work can be complex or simple depending on how far downstream from the substation you are.  

   Outages suck bigtime. All I can say is stay patent and give the serviceman time to troubleshoot the problem. If he cannot fix it, then a crew needs to be called to do the same. In the case of a giant act of nature like tornados or ice storms it can really take days to gain power and even other electric utilities are called in to help or contractors are in the loop too. I have done some crazy things like rowing out in a boat during a flood and putting on my hooks in the boat stepping onto a pole to climb it for repairs. If a rumble of thunder would wake me up, I could not go back to sleep because I knew the phone would ring sending me to work. I sleep through that stuff now .   

   Any questions? 🤣

[Terrierman]

17 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

@fishinwrench, @netboy and @Jerry Rapp,

    We are talking about what I did for a living for many years. Let's start at a substation.  Transmission lines come into a Substation. These transmission likes come in at 161 thousand volts, 69 thousand, 34 thousand or even higher voltages. At this point they go into big transformers that change voltage down into one or more feeders that feed three phase lines. At this point they are attached to reclosers that are in essence circuit breakers. They protect the feeder from faults caused by many things like storms, load and some dumb arse running in to a pole taking down the feeder. These reclosers will reset three times before locking out when a fourth fault happens. The fourth hit will fully lock it out and shut down the power. Further down each individual feeder are other OCR's which are again a recloser that can lock out a line for a fault. They are set to isolate a fault downstream on these feeders as to not go all the way back to the substation and take out the whole line or circuit. So, for further protection we have two other things. So, if we tapped off a three-phase line called a lateral making it single phase that takes power to one or hundreds or more customers there would be a single phase recloser for lots of customers or a refusable cutout to protect the line. For a few customers there would be a cutout, for many customers, the reclosure that would again protect the line by letting the fault hit three times and on the fourth lock out the line. Some faults clear themselves. Like bird, squirrel or other vermin on the pole causing a fault. Sometimes a tree limb will burn into, and the fault will clear. All of these things protect lives and property. So now we are down to the transformers we all are fed from for our homes and businesses. Businesses and things that need a set of transformers that need three phase power are fed off of two or three transformers. These will be protected with two or three refusable cutouts. For home power a single transformer with a single refusable cutout protects the incoming line and you and your property in case of a fault. Note a single transformer can be small and run just one household or several of you and your neighbors.  Line work can be complex or simple depending on how far downstream from the substation you are.  

   Outages suck bigtime. All I can say is stay patent and give the serviceman time to troubleshoot the problem. If he cannot fix it, then a crew needs to be called to do the same. In the case of a giant act of nature like tornados or ice storms it can really take days to gain power and even other electric utilities are called in to help or contractors are in the loop too. I have done some crazy things like rowing out in a boat during a flood and putting on my hooks in the boat stepping onto a pole to climb it for repairs. If a rumble of thunder would wake me up, I could not go back to sleep because I knew the phone would ring sending me to work. I sleep through that stuff now .   

   Any questions? 🤣

Yes.  Can you put this post in 25 words or less please.

[fishinwrench]

16 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

Any questions?

Is this one of those transformers that go Ka-Boom and shoot balls of fire everywhere? 

Because it sits right next to the corner of my house. 

 

[BilletHead]

7 minutes ago, Terrierman said:

Yes.  Can you put this post in 25 words or less please.

               HA! No not really and your Uncle Odie would of went into more detail  .

[Terrierman]

13 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Is this one of those transformers that go Ka-Boom and shoot balls of fire everywhere? 

Because it sits right next to the corner of my house. 

 

The correct answer which I'm betting Billethead will agree with is:  "It depends."  Do you allow squirrels, birds and the like to frequent the area?  Do you keep wasps and hornets away?  These things matter.

[fishinwrench]

I have a superior understanding of DC voltage, but I can be dangerous with AC stuff. 

I wired in a clothes dryer once, tested it and it worked fine.  Scooted into place, and as soon as the dryer touched the washer the sparks flew like an arc welder 😳 

I called an electrician fishing buddy and he came right over, did some stuff and all was well.   When finished he said, "Well Glen, you only did one thing wrong".

I said "Yeah, what?"

He says......"You touched it in the first place!   You obviously don't know what the hell you're doing.  Stick to working on boats! ". 

Point securely taken. 👍

[fishinwrench]

6 minutes ago, Terrierman said:

The correct answer which I'm betting Billethead will agree with is:  "It depends."  Do you allow squirrels, birds and the like to frequent the area?  Do you keep wasps and hornets away?  These things matter.

I don't specifically give them permission, no.     But they aren't commonly known to ask first.  🤷‍♂️

[tjm]

One year squirrels got our transformer fuse seven times in three months, never happened in the twenty years before and  and only once in the three or four years since.

[BilletHead]

6 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Is this one of those transformers that go Ka-Boom and shoot balls of fire everywhere? 

Because it sits right next to the corner of my house. 

 

           Yes and no. The cutout above the pot (transformer) is what is supposed to go boom first. it protects the transformer from overload and you farther down the service line to your house. It has a fuse that is replaceable. Goes by amps drawn. If the transformer is overloaded because you have everything on in your house at the same time or there is a fault in your service line it will blow. Squirrel or other vermin on top of the transformer goofing off and causing the high voltage to go to ground will blow it too. Yes it goes boom and there can be a flash of sparks. The transformer can go bad too with age but mostly something else can cause it. Lightning comes to mind. I have witnessed the wrong size of fuse on a cutout too causing the transformer to fault. They are only rated to a specific amount of amps depending on size of transformer. 

  Speaking of cutouts. There as a three-phase feeder protected by a set of cutouts. One phase had blown. Serviceman had patrolled the line and could not find the cause of the outage. So on shorter poles you had an extendo hot stick you could reach from the ground and pull-down cutout door, replace fuse and take it back up and shut the cutout to restore power.  Well on this rather large pole a 50 footer. I had to climb the pole and with an 8-foot hotstick I removed the fuse door and refused the cutout. then shut the door. It was a 160-amp fuse. You did not look up when shutting that door in case of a fault. Well, it blew and I felt a pain in my upper part of my shoulder. My ears began to ring loudly from that loud bang. I got to the bottom of the pole to see blood on my tee shirt. I had been hit with a blast of the fine braded wires from the fuse. A little shotgun pattern of black spots of wire and blood. We later found a hairline crack on an insulator had let the line go to ground. I had fine wires work out of that shoulder for months.