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PSE Lineman
09-04-2007, 11:36 AM
This cutout was burning the pole in the 34.5 kv (19.9 single phase) The brand is westinghouse. It failed from the middle down to the bottom. The top was intact with no evidence of freezing at all. Lifted the jumper , then went to open it and it fell apart. All the other cutouts are 12.5 chance failures. There have been just a few of these 34 kv cutouts failing. I'll check if there are any chance 34 kv cutouts around.

Stick-it
09-04-2007, 07:34 PM
Wow - What area was this in? Seabeck? I see this all the time with the older "grasshopper" cutouts. Heard you talk about it with the new abb switches but haven't seen it yet.

PSE Lineman
09-07-2007, 09:05 AM
The cutouts I see going bad are in Whatcom County.

Stinger
09-08-2007, 09:29 AM
Porcilan cutouts are failing big time up here On the NG system. They are puting a time line together to change out all their non-banded porcilian cut outs. It is now standard practice to mention inspection of cut outs on all tailboard job briefs for distribution crews both contractor and Grid.

Ohiolineman1
09-09-2007, 06:06 PM
AEP in Ohio has replaced over 1,000 of the cutouts on 19.9 and 12kv that are going bad.

Kap.

bartsub
09-13-2007, 01:12 PM
I work for Peabody Municipal Light Dept. We have had at least 100 of these chance cutouts break. Some have burnt up but most just caused an outage. Could have been worse. We went on a comprehensive program to replace all Chance cutouts with ABB polymar type. We used mutual aid from surrounding municipals, took a 4 hour outage in a large area on Sunday mornings to complete the job. We have changed out over 1000 of them and only have 94 left on the system to the best of our knowledge. Be careful and good luck.

Special ED
09-24-2007, 12:32 PM
Went to Virginia early this year and they made it a point to warn us of the failing cutouts on the 19.9kv they wouldn't even let a cutout be the visual opening when grounding and required it to be completely isolated when working it dead and grounded.

Apparently they think they recieved and installed a bunch of damaged cutouts as they have had the fuses blow and power track though the cutout and keep the line energized.

Test, Open, Test, Ground. Make it safe or take off counting insulators on your long walk back to the shop cause I don't be the one to recover your body.

Oregon Lineman
10-08-2007, 11:16 PM
That almost looks like the first one that failed on me over 20 yrs ago @ Grays Harbor PUD. Lots of cut outs failing, mostly in the areas where the temps have alot of swing between hi's & lows. Water & cold will get them most of the time. It is also a problem that mosy companies do not realize that these like everything else have a life span and need to be replaced. But then that would mean less money in management bonuses. What's a few blow ups right. Stay clear when opening & closing, wear safety glasses & ear plugs.