gotta question

[Pootnaigle]

I hadda lil time on my hands todays n decided to take a ride out in the country, I noticed sumpin thats reletively new to the electrical grid in this area. Like i said this is out in the country and about every 3 or 4 spans there was a cluster mounted with 3 cutouts hooked to 3 arrestors. They didnt do this back 5 yrs ago and I can only assume its something to do with reliability.Perhaps one of you younger fellers could shed some light on it. Whats the theory behind this? I spoze they hired a new engineer..........

[Electriceel]

I am one of the old guys, so this sounds like an engineering nightmare, with the new arrestors I have yet see one of them fail that has caused more than a blink on the system they are designed to blow the ground connection off when the arrestor fails.

Now thinking back in the olden days with the old gap arrestors a cutout at these locations would have saved a lot of windshield time.

Anyway that is my thought

[Trbl639]

One old the Old guys too Poot......

My guess would be a new engineer..thinking if the arrestor fails, it'll blow the cutout fuse to keep the line on......maybe..........if you remember, before we retired, we were putting the arrestors on pots/dips, on the downstream side of the cutout...thinking the same thing......reliability???!!!!

[Pootnaigle]

Yeah I kin unnerstand the reliability aspect n I noticed several fuses blown,My question is who is gonna refuse em Kause I know the servicemen for this outfit are already bowed up and their entire day is scheduled before they ever get to work. Oh n by the way these are all the newer polymer type arrestors. They usta give us a fit goin bad and havin to hunt em down to restore the line fuses.

[BigClive]

It may be so the blown fuse shows that the arrestor has failed or taken a hit and allows it to be isolated so that it can be replaced conveniently.

There could be a few reasons I guess.

(Wouldn't the fuse kinda limit the arrestors ability to do its job?)

[Trbl639]

I hear ya Poot!! Them polymers are a pain! We got a bunch once that were marked 9KV, but were actually 3KV...just heated up a new section of 336, with them on it.......talk about a mess!!!! Burnt the world down!!!!

Yep there were days that my tickets were so thick and I had trbl every time I turned around, that I barely had ime to scratch my butt, much less refuse LA's and cap banks!!!

[lewy]

We have had some of our 21 kv polymer arresters that only split down the side when they failed & because they were installed on the line side of the cutout it took out the circuit, it took some time to find the bad arrester. We now put our arresters on the load side of the cutout that way if the arrester does fail it will blow the fuse. We only use polymer arresters on all of our voltages, they are much less violent when they do blow.

[Lineman North Florida]

We put arrestor's every third pole with all the lightning down here in Fla, but have yet to see the cutouts down here in this area, arrestor's just tapped up to the line on mainline feeders.

[thickthumb38]

:confused:poot im shotin from da hip here but i reckon it could be cuz them ole' poly restors have a problem with buildin up a capitance like charge when they start breaking down and will blink the lights we have had this problem quite often wit'em so im assuming they reckonin the cut out gonna fix that prob...
We have also gotten sereval marked wit da wrong voltage so i guess if they got cut out above them they fix that problem too.... . the only other thing i could guess is the safety man wont let them use a shot gun stick anymore to heat up anything;)

[Boomer gone soft]

I was just gonna post somethin like that Clive.
Sorta a "Visual" on a bad arrester". Open "doors" are easy to see.

As for the fuse "limiting the arrestors ability to do it's job".
I don't know how the switch is wired up.

If it was wired to the Ground side of the arrestor, with a 3/4 amp fuse...I wouldn't think so. Wired to the High side of the arrestor...I WOULD think so.

LOL HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You need to stick to politics.....at least you can re-post blogs and PRETEND you know what you're talking about there!:rolleyes: HAHAHAHA

We don't carry many 3/4A fuses up here......hell, we don't even have any 7/8A!!!!!:eek:

Lightning strikes are usually small amperage so a fuse shouldn't bother an arrestor....we're not as sophisticated as Scabrat's places of employment; we'd have to use a T2 out of the truck.....HAHAHAHAHA.....(3/4A-- that guy KILLS me!)

I have to agree with Thickthumb.....if this isn't a stroke of engineering brilliance, it would have to be another safety jackass fresh out of school trying to us from ourselves.:confused: That safety guy would poop a circle around himself seeing some of the guys up here energize those things with their gloves (crazy, I know, but nobody cares what an ex-contractor thinks).

That's all I got for now....I can't wait to see Scabrat's explanation of his ignorance this time.....I suppose he used 3/4A fuses on his illusive banks nobody heard of in Fort Pierce.:rolleyes:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Pootnaigle]

Ummmmm a 3/4 amp fuse on a line circuit? dunno how the switch is wired? Geeezaloueeza ,Swamp just what kinda linework did you do. Have ya ever seen a fused ground on anything other than a ferroresonance 4th cutout? But even if it was hooked to the ground instead of the primary how would that make a difference in the flow of current ??????? It seems impossible for me to follow yer train of thought.

[Trbl639]

Ummmmm a 3/4 amp fuse on a line circuit? dunno how the switch is wired? Geeezaloueeza ,Swamp just what kinda linework did you do. Have ya ever seen a fused ground on anything other than a ferroresonance 4th cutout? But even if it was hooked to the ground instead of the primary how would that make a difference in the flow of current ??????? It seems impossible for me to follow yer train of thought.

yeah...what Poot said!!!!

[Pootnaigle]

Ummmm Ok I reckon yera guessin kinda guy, n that splains a lot. By the same logic I spoze lottsa you non union guys are guessers n that splains why so many of ya get hurt.1st thang I lurnt doin linewerk is dont do no damn guessin ask somebody that knows.N sumday the guys askin those questions will be askin YOU! So maybe I better spend some time lurnin lottsa answers that wont gettem hurt and also lurn why things are done and how it werks, so I could make an informed answer to a question. Obvisously Your non union background didnt inspire you to do the same. I still hafta chuckle at puttin a fuse on the grounded side of anything ........no lineman would ever do sumpin like that.Are you not aware that if that fuse blew the bottom side of that arrestor could potentially be at primary voltage? Ummmmmmmm unacceptable explanation from a journeyman guessin or not. Better stick with politics, not that you have a much deeper grasp on that.

[Edge]

would have to see a picture bub... how possible is it that they set the pole and did all the "overhead" so all the UG boys have to to is get it there and then they can put up a riser? or maybe it's a future bank cap or tx.... or maybe they are just trying something...

odd....

[Pootnaigle]

would have to see a picture bub... how possible is it that they set the pole and did all the "overhead" so all the UG boys have to to is get it there and then they can put up a riser? or maybe it's a future bank cap or tx.... or maybe they are just trying something...

odd....

Ummmmm every 3 or 4 spans for several miles? nah I dont bleve so. purdy sure it has to do with reliability in a lightning prone circuit.I am guessin here that they are using 10 amp fuses as thats bout the smallest thing they use.Voltage on that circuit is 13.2 (7620 phase to grnd.) N for some of the guys under the impression that a lightning arrestor is a one time deal thats not so. It will operate many many times before it blows that grounded lead off the bottom side. With fuses it may just operate once ( I honestly dunno bout that) before it blows that fuse, but with many many installations so close together I kin see where the loss of one or 2 wouldnt adversely effect the circuit.

[lewy]

I agree it is lightning protection. We put the arrester lead on the load side of our cutouts, but you will have less nuisance trips when the fuse is above 20 amps. the higher fuses can handle the momentary short better than the small ones.

[T-Man]

I only have seen this recently but not in our service area yet. They had LA's every 3 to 4 spans but I don't remember seeing cutouts. So I had to go to one of our new engineers and ask. He said the latest theroy is to do this for reliability, when lightening strikes the line, there is a need to dissipate lightening before it reaches the end or open point and reduce momentary and total outages. They are installing these LA's every 1000 feet or so to drain that current in advance. The LA's are equipped with an expulsion cap on the low side that blows and the connection is opened. Not sure why there is fusing in your case Poot. I would guess there would have to be a line patrol day to go out looking for blown LAs and replace them. . .More good busy work. As stated earlier a picture would help.

[lewy]

Poot with some of the new poly arrestor when they fail they do not blow clear & would take out the circuit , but with the cutout installed the fuse would only blow (min 20 amp) if the arrestor failed, not every time the arrestor sees an over voltage.

[Pootnaigle]

Ummmmm Ok tween what Lewy n T man have said it makes sense to me or at least I can understand the concept. I am purdy sure these arrestors dont have an expulsion cap. Just common everday ordinary arrestors prolly round 10 kv.
With that said I also understand the use of the cutouts, cause if the arrestor failed ( as I have seen many do ) it would lock out the recloser feeding it and that wouldnt help reliability at all.Plus with so many in the circuit it would take forever to hunt the failed one down........, cutout solves all that. Thanks for your input guys..

[Koga]

is this on the Gulf states / Entergy lines ? I haven't seen any with the cut outs yet spaced out on the line like your describing. Seems Entergy tries things in one area and if it works then every one will see it . I know we had a circuit with lightning problems and just raising the neutral shield up took care of most of the problem. Up in Arkansas I saw arrestors hangin from the 3 phase primary with the bottom side tied to the neutral at least 6 feet from the pole, no cut out. Thought that was curiuos and might cause some problems , but mabe it was workin for em.

Koga

[Trbl639]

is this on the Gulf states / Entergy lines ? I haven't seen any with the cut outs yet spaced out on the line like your describing. Seems Entergy tries things in one area and if it works then every one will see it . I know we had a circuit with lightning problems and just raising the neutral shield up took care of most of the problem. Up in Arkansas I saw arrestors hangin from the 3 phase primary with the bottom side tied to the neutral at least 6 feet from the pole, no cut out. Thought that was curiuos and might cause some problems , but mabe it was workin for em.

Koga

Koga..........

We weren't putting cut-outs on em when I retired last year......started 'shielding' a lot of 3phase in the Delta area in Arkansas, or lightning prone areas, but now I think they are putting em every so often...every 3 or 6 spans I think.....now, dunno for sure..........as far as the arrestor clusters (as I called em) 3 arrestors on the fiberglass 3 switch brackets, tied to the neutral, they were working ok and I didn't have any problems in my area.............They are doing a road job, not too far from the house, I'll look next trip that way and see what they're doing with em.....

[Pootnaigle]

Yep Koga its sho nuff On Old GSU property . They use a cluster and mount the cutouts and arrestors all on it. Hasta be sumpin new since I retired kause we never done that. Most all the construction here is with a static neutral, Cause we get lottsa lightning.

[Koga]

it yet here with the cut outs every 3 or 4 spans. Guess theyre tryin lots of different stuff out. The ones up in Ark. just caught my eye hangin out there, thought somthing had got wrapped up in the lines from a distance. Wonder if that is just something one of the young lectric engineer is commin up with.

Koga