Cutout Failures

[PA BEN]

Lets hear some stories about bad porcelain cutouts.
I haven't seen it here at this utility but, at my last utility we had a lot of pole fires, tracking, outages because the cutout fell apart and if you don't look over the cutout before you open it, they will come apart as you open it. In my opinion it's from moisture that gets into the cutout then freezes. It doesnt freeze very hard here so that's why (in my opinion) is why we don't see this problem here. I wonder if utilities in hot dry country have had problems.

[BigClive]

That used to be a very hot thread on this forum. I'm not going to mention the bad products name, but lets see if it still holds the honours.

The primary issue was disintegration of the cutout causing the live metalwork to drop on and injure or kill the lineman.

[sparky0293]

This is a continuing problem until all defective AB Chance cutouts as removed from service. To date I have not seen a failed S&C. The problem is with the cement. The cement causes the fractures in the porcelain ultimately creating leakage current, tracking, and a host of problems. Mainly for us linemen and the public in general. The companies should get together and go after AB Chance. I guess we have to wait until one of is Killed or someone in the general public.

[mainline]

I don't know if it was an A.B. chance cutout or not, but one night during our big storm in march me and my coworker worked all day on a line. We were soaked and exhausted. We finally finished everything, to end our shift we went back to the mainline cutout. I removed our grounds put on the high side tap with a shotgun, and then plugged in the fuse with an 8' extendo. The cutout broke in half and left me holding the fuse holder with high side balanced on top. Fortunately I still had the shotgun so I could take the hot lien clamp of one handed. I almost soiled my pants. No backup cutout and the end of the shift so all those people had to wait until morning to get power. I would definitely recommend a thorough visual inspection for any old porcelain cutout. I know a bunch of other people who have had them break. Scary.

[maddog369]

These cutouts should be inspected very carefully before working on or near them. As far as cold weather being a factor in failure, they have even failed in Hawaii. Although they do seem to fail alot more in colder areas. Aside from pole fires and the fact that they just fall open sometimes, we have one guy that lost both hands due to these cutouts failing, as well as a couple close calls with guys lucky enough to escape with minor burns.

[grillman]

AB Chance cutouts have cost me a lot of sleep, cracking down the middle tracking across the T-bracket we mount them on and causing pole fires. But on the flip side they have made me a lot of money. We have learned to go up in the air and inspect them before you attempt to open them whenever possible.

[Pootnaigle]

I have a question regarding Kearney cutouts.I noticed over the years that they were really bad about burning up the door when used on transformers. Typcally the fuse would melt but door remained closed and would track over until the fuse barrell burnt upThe same cutouts used as a linefuse rarely did this. I dont know if they would only carry a small enough amount of current to power a transformer but not a line? Any explanations?
I sure liked hangin em with a stick just dont get no easier but they didnt hold up for crap

[Dorchester]

During a recent storm, we had bird dogs doing circuit patrols. One guy found a cut-out that had apparently burnt through an arm, but was still in and running. It was a 13.8kv riser pole.
We switched around and when we went to repair, we saw that the cutout had a barely perceptible crack down the entire length, from top to bottom. Apparently there was some water ingress and through typical heat cycling, it cracked all the way down, energizing the bracket. Nice pickup by the bird dog. The vintage was mid nineties. We have found through a replacement program and testing that this was the timeframe when the predominent manufacturer of pocelain cutouts was shutting down there production, laying people off, make your own conclusions. I don't believe ABB made their own porcelain. I imagine they were getting it from the other manufacturer.

[compression]

Foreman got a wild hair this morning and decided we needed to go across town and change a pole out that has been on our list for a while. I asked him why now? We're in the middle of a conversion. He says I don't know, He just had a feeling driving out to the job that we needed to do it now. Says that he's learned over the years, if you get a feeling like that you better do it/ go with it. So we loaded up a pole and went that way.

We get setup and start a tailgate and first thing I see when I look up is one of the cutouts busted in halve, the top halve has slid about 1 inch to the side and the only thing holding it together is the door.

We all got a chuckle out of his premonition... bet you can't guess the brand?



here's a close up of the top halve, if they would've domed the top these of boogers they probably wouldn't have so many problems...

[lineleader]

this has been happening in our area for about 4 years now. we had to push our company,Ohio Edison[First Energy], to buy the polymer type cutouts to replace the ones made in mexico.we are replacing them at a wholesale rate now and they are constantly causing damage and outages in our system.not many problems with the 27kv variety,but the 15kv ones are mainly the culprits.visual inspection is a must when we come upon a pole with porcelain cutouts on it. iv'e spent weeks so far replacing these imported pieces of garbage. good luck and be careful; i only hope you dont have as many as we did.