Failed Chance cutout pictures

[PSE Lineman]

Here is a chance cutout that was burning the pole around the bolt that was holding the pole mount cutout bracket and burn marks at the xfmr bolts. These are the ones that we have been finding cracked length wise and or completely broken in half or just hanging from the high side jumper with the stud melted out of it. This one was ready to burn the stud out and fall in half. Be sure to check them out before climbing or pulling them open. Is this what happened in Massachusetts? Is it the same cutout? Is it the same type of failure?

[tramp67]

Those pictures look very similar to the many failed Chance cutouts that I have run across. Sometimes, they will crack circumferentially around the area of the mounting stud, and some have the stud burned off completely.
Imagine what could happen on a three phase bank with one of these breaking while you are on the pole or in the vicinity in a bucket. Even worse, if you are in your hooks opening a cutout on a loop feed after the loop has been closed at another location, and the bottom of the cutout breaks off while still being hot.
Why isn't there more safety bulletins issued about these? I try to tell everyone I work with about these cutouts.

[loodvig]

Yes, those are the cutouts, that caused the bad accident in Mass. We now, with the company's blessing, remove/replace all AB Chance potted cutouts the we run into.

[PSE Lineman]

I'm glad your company is going to such lengths. Here we are still taking them out of the box and hanging them all over the system by the pallet load. We turn them in to quality control and they shrug their shoulders and say that they don't fail that much. They also say that we are the only ones that have failed ones (our area of the company). Maybe no one else around here is turning them in and just tossing them in the dumpster...

[DuFuss]

Thos look like the ones we put up. I'll have to look next time and see if it's an ABChance one. I've never seen one fail, what are the conditions that they do?

[tramp67]

It seems like the highest failure rates of the Chance cutouts are in areas of the country that have a lot of freeze/thaw cycles in the weather. From the information I have come across so far, the epoxy bond between the mounting bracket and the porcelain fails and allows moisture to be absorbed by the porcelain, since there is no glaze where the mounting bracket or tab is attached. The moisture freezes and causes hairline cracks in the glaze. Dirt and impurities supposedly end up accumulating along the cracks and cause minute tracking to occur along the insulator, and the current flow also deteriorates the epoxy and the mounting bracket, as seen by many of the failed cutouts being charred at the attachment point.
The moisture also causes the porcelain itself to crack, which causes many of the cutouts to break into two or more pieces.
The tracking also can become severe enough that there will be a substantial amount of current flow across the cutout even with the fuse blown and/or the barrel removed from the cutout.
ABChance claims that the problem has been overstated and that they have corrected the problems, but looking at many of the new cutouts still being installed, especially the epoxy bond at the mounting tab, it looks like they are cranking out the same ol' junk.

[PSE Lineman]

The cutout in the pictures was taken down because it was reported that a pole was on fire (smoking really) . We hadn't had a freeze yet this year so I wonder why it just started to track to the pole? We do get lots of freeze , thaw cycles over the winter here but none since last spring. (It has frozen since the cutout was removed from service.)

[BigClive]

The weather is pretty critical in affecting tracking failures. Burst of heavy rain that might seem to be a source of water problems are nothing compared to a continuous damp drizzle that sustains the tracking in circumstances when it might just blow itself clear.

[PSE Lineman]

We found another cutout yesterday. The call was "tree burning in the line". When I got there it had stopped so I asked the cust. to show me and I could see where the burn marks were around the pole mount cutout bracket and that the cutout was hanging askew. Called for help and we changed it. We didn't want to disturb it much so we just lifted the hot tap (one xfmr , one meter) and it was ready to fall off the stud. It was just sitting there ready to fall in half and the stud was burned right out of it and the glue oozed down the crack. (that sounds bad!) I also e-mailed A.B.Chance company today with the following:

Go to "powerlineman.com" and read under safety and accidents and see failed chance cutout pictures. In the State of Mass. one company is changing out ALL chance cutouts because a man was killed when he was climbing a pole and one failed. Is there a recall in progress? Why do they fail so often , split down the middle and the mounting stud burns out and the pole catches fire? This is not an isolated incident. I live in Washington state and we find one every one or two months. As amatter of fact I personally took one down yesterday and am going to take pictures and put it up on the site with the other ones today or tomorrow. Something has to be done. You MUST realize that there are litterally millions of them in the air feeding transformers and fused lines. The company I work for is still buying them , but the men I work with want them to start buying them somewhere else before someone else is killed by one of your drop type cutouts. I would like an answer that addresses the questions that I have here. Thank you.



You know that chance isn't going to do anything about it unless someone sues them and wins. We're talking millions of dollars to their bottom line. We just need to keep hammerin' away at them and the company's that buy their cutouts...

[shaun]

I've had three fail on me in a 2 day period. One, I refused and it broke in half but the fuse held it together. (thank god) The second was on c ph and was already broken in half when I got there. It was tracking thru the top portion of the cutout to the pole and set the pole on fire. Rather than play around with those porcelin cutouts, I called for the circuit to be dumped and it was a good thing I did because while we were up in the air, a ph cutout just crumbled basically all by itself. (no kidding, we didn't touch it or nuffin) We replace all those porcelin cutouts with the poly ones now. EVRYONE of them.

[lineleader]

we've been changing these things for about four years now.its co. policy in our area[ohio edison,akron] to automatically change a porcelain on the pole we are working on even if it isnt bad yet.the replacement is a polymer cutout but we really dont have a long time effect from the sun and weather on them. nobody has been injured ffrom the damaged cutout and the co. wont make a blanket change on them;money over safety i guess.id like to know the particulars on the person that was hurt from the failed one. ive had them break apart as they were being disconnected from the source,so i think its a matter of time until it happens here. be careful!

[PSE Lineman]

Lineleader,


".id like to know the particulars on the person that was hurt from the failed one. ive had them break apart as they were being disconnected from the source,so i think its a matter of time until it happens here."


Go to the bottom of this page and click on archives then safetf mtg , accidents and near misses then "Mass. electrical worker burnt" by Loodvig and the info you want is there.

[loodvig]

http://www.powerlineman.com/lforum/showthread.php?t=1475

[lineleader]

loodvig; thankls for the info brother. im going to take the information to our supt. as he wanted to know if anyone was hurt yet by these.By the way, i ran into some grid linemen[a lot of them as a matter of fact] in buffalo last month;some from mass,r.i. & buffalo too. bunch of hard workers and sure were nice to work with.thanks again,lineleader.

[shaun]

One more yesterday, Mon 13th. Those things are bad news. Are they just a bad batch or just terrible?

[loodvig]

We lost 7 today that I overheard on the radio. In the rain. Tracking and burning!

[tramp67]

One more yesterday, Mon 13th. Those things are bad news. Are they just a bad batch or just terrible?
They are bad news. I haven't heard anything for a while, but several years back, there was a memo out about Chance cutouts manufactured between specific dates that were supposed to be the only bad ones - date code is stamped on stainless steel on top contact assembly. That was probably just to put peoples' minds at ease, as they seem to fail no matter when they were manufactured. Probably all the cutouts manufactured since they moved their facilities to Mexico, where labor is cheap and quality control is nonexistent. I've even run across failed cutouts that were put up in the last couple years - the lines didn't exist before then!

[loodvig]

The Grid just gave out a contract out to change out 400 of them here locally. It's a drop in the bucket but at least there's an effort to get them down!

[bambam]

We had two or three break in half at about the same spot, but it was after a lightning storm.

And of course they said you all are the only ones complaining so keep hanging them.

But ill pass this along to our safety guy..


Anbody know the price of the polymer ones?

[Ray Bruneel]

These pictures could have been taken here around Detroit any time in the last 6-7 years. We have had such a problem that the utility (DTE Energy) has started a group replacement program to try to get approx 30,000 of these switches out of the air.The joint company/union safety committee has went so far as to say " any 100 amp or 200 amp AB Chance fused cutout used for transformers or cable poles, requires replacement be completed after de-energizing the transformer or cable pole." We have also taken a stance that we will not jumper these out using the upper and lower trainers, when these switches are used as sectionalizing points, only a line to line connection is to be used. If that is not possible than a shutdown is to be arranged. These switches are everywhere, and we should not let one more lineman be hurt by them. If anyone needs more info on these, please contact me at IBEW local 17.

[thrasher]

We have all heard ,and I believe, the linemen from the north about problems with Chance cutouts. But is any southern utility that doesn't have freeze/thaw cycles having a problem with them. We use the chance cutouts and I have gone thru fifteen years of data and everyone's memory and the only cutout problems we have are with old fiberglass tubes/doors "feathering" and tracking after the fuse blows. We have never had a chance cutout break in 15 years.

[harmonic_oscillation]

I think it's pretty pathetic that some of the northern utilities are not acknowledging the problem. Are they doing a failure rate analysis of Chance cutouts vs others? Here in Connecticut, all the Chance cutouts are to be removed by 2009 under order of the public utilities commission, after discovering that Chance cutouts are failing at a rate much higher than others (and the rate is escalating). Part of the problem is the inherent humidity in the area, which I would think would be pretty high in Detroit.

[Linemo]

The cutouts that youall are having trouble with are they 15KV or 27KV rated we (Dominion) are using only 27KV rated cutouts ABB (same design) but arent having problems !

[shaun]

The cutouts that youall are having trouble with are they 15KV or 27KV rated we (Dominion) are using only 27KV rated cutouts ABB (same design) but arent having problems !

I never even bothered to look Linemo but I'd guess 15KV. (don't quote me tho) On Monday, I'll check the giant box of failed ones and see if I can get the answer for ya.

[tramp67]

The majority of the bad cutouts I've run across have been the 15KV, but they have been in use a lot more in the Midwestern states. A lot of systems have been converted to 24.9KV in recent years, and there have been a few bad cutouts that I had the misfortune of encountering on these systems as well. As for the ABB cutouts, I haven't had any problems with them, nor have I heard of any problems from anyone else. Has anyone out there run across any bad ABB cutouts?

[loodvig]

The problem cutouts that we have are the AB Chance 100 amp. 15kv load break type. We are calling them potted because where the steel mounting stud is potted into the glass. It's some kind of epoxy that is poured into the glass. Moisture gets into the epoxy and freezes. Also the older one's track a lot! We had a crew a few years ago open 3 riser fuses and went to ground the riser. The cutouts were tracking and the man got a flash!

[shaun]

The cutouts that youall are having trouble with are they 15KV or 27KV rated we (Dominion) are using only 27KV rated cutouts ABB (same design) but arent having problems !

Yup. Like Loodvig said. I checked the box and all are AB chance and 15kv.

[Linerebel]

We have had several 15 & 25 KV cut out switches break here a FPL just like some of the pictures you've posted. Most of the ones were finding are in salt spray areas although some are not.

[racinsprintz10]

I ran into this myself in Flint, MI about 2 years ago. Foreman said I was gonna break one and of course I thought yeah right, eat shit. Not two days later, i broke one right in half.