how many of you have any phase discipline?

[bobbo]

I went to a property where a phase was bucked three times when it hit each corner. Raised on properties where you knew where every phase came out on each bus. Taught A is north and east and C is south and west. Most Aep properties were like that. And the coops. if you bucked them with the jumpers you didnt have a job. In the west they are all bucked. You can go into vertical corners along the same street and they are built entirely different. A "*******" corner got you two checked. In the west there isnt a corner that isn't *******.:confused:

[hotwiretamer]

I went to a property where a phase was bucked three times when it hit each corner. Raised on properties where you knew where every phase came out on each bus. Taught A is north and east and C is south and west. Most Aep properties were like that. And the coops. if you bucked them with the jumpers you didnt have a job. In the west they are all bucked. You can go into vertical corners along the same street and they are built entirely different. A "*******" corner got you two checked. In the west there isnt a corner that isn't *******.:confused:

Okay, so A is north, turns a right corner and now is east. How would you get that wire back on the north side after turning another right without building a ******* corner???:confused:

[rcdallas]

Old Dallas Power and Light it's like that--whatever it took that's how it was. As a troubleman's perspective it would be nice to have.

[Lineman North Florida]

The outfit that I work for is really good about keeping it the same, on horizontal construction A phase will be South or East, vertical construction A phase will be the top phase, if a 3 phase padmount is made up correctly to the specs you will have clockwise rotation, anything else and you have swapped something somewhere.

[lewy]

Our system is predominately looped with in the station & station to station, so every time we add new plant it all has to be phased, so we have phase markings at all switches, riser & junction poles. We try & keep all of our corners square, but sometimes you have to make a basstard corner in order to phase with the line you are tying into. As far as underground 3 phase pads, we always go RWB top to bottom. So I guess to answer your question you can not look at our lines & know the phasing based on geography.

[bobbo]

Okay, so A is north, turns a right corner and now is east. How would you get that wire back on the north side after turning another right without building a ******* corner???:confused:

Tap east to north. And south to west on your buck. Trust me there are a lot of properties where the phasing isn't bucked. You can face the subs and know where your phasing is. After a storm on Aep. Spent a month fixing all their corners. Because everyone built whatever they wanted. They wanted to keep their phasing correct. I thought all properties were like that. Closed in a can, delta system, single phased. Tightened connectors for three miles at every dead end and corner. The phase was swappwd and bucked 4 or 5 times. Found a burnt open at a double dead end on a jumper on a connector on the field side, barely noticeable. Couldn't believe that it changed position so many times. In the rural coop specs, they actually show how to jumper a corner and a vertical. AEP did the same. Feed side, higher and A phase north to east. So a troubleman could spot trouble and wouldnt have to look at circuit maps. Some properties every corner is built differently. The crow flies upside down and backwards here.

[bobbo]

feed higher, load side lower. A phase always taps north to east, c south to west. Every time. Every place. No *******. Some properties can go A maybe north to west, C south to east. Then all subs switches you can phas in together. If you building something ******* on the property, you screw up the whole system. Now a troubleman has to test at every open. Now you have to double your manpower, because he has to go in the phases to make sure his switch can parralel. If it is a good system, all he has yo do is close it.

[Pootnaigle]

Well splain to me what kinda lineman would ever put up switches that didnt phase across? You realize of course that just one uh oh would change rotation on every transformer bank from that point on, not to mention that it would never be able to be switched hot. I just dont see that happenin by trained professionals.
I will agree however that it would be much easier to troubleshoot and or balance load if the phasing was easily identified.

[hotwiretamer]

Tap east to north. And south to west on your buck. Trust me there are a lot of properties where the phasing isn't bucked. You can face the subs and know where your phasing is. After a storm on Aep. Spent a month fixing all their corners. Because everyone built whatever they wanted. They wanted to keep their phasing correct. I thought all properties were like that. Closed in a can, delta system, single phased. Tightened connectors for three miles at every dead end and corner. The phase was swappwd and bucked 4 or 5 times. Found a burnt open at a double dead end on a jumper on a connector on the field side, barely noticeable. Couldn't believe that it changed position so many times. In the rural coop specs, they actually show how to jumper a corner and a vertical. AEP did the same. Feed side, higher and A phase north to east. So a troubleman could spot trouble and wouldnt have to look at circuit maps. Some properties every corner is built differently. The crow flies upside down and backwards here.

Ya, I get what what you are trying to accomplish. But in your original thread you mentioned not building any baastard corners. I was making a point that if you make two right turns, you have to build a baastard corner to stay true to your phase location that you want to keep. Maybe I didn't understand your first post.
Now, about spending a month on fixing all the corners that were made up "wrong", did you have to go and open up all the trans. banks and then swap those as well to keep your rotation correct??:confused:
Where I work the lines were not built with the forsight to build it east to north, south to west. So, we have no choice but to build off what is already existing. We even have to roll the center phase on occasion in order to phase into an existing circuit.

[hotwiretamer]

feed higher, load side lower. A phase always taps north to east, c south to west. Every time. Every place. No *******. Some properties can go A maybe north to west, C south to east. Then all subs switches you can phas in together. If you building something ******* on the property, you screw up the whole system. Now a troubleman has to test at every open. Now you have to double your manpower, because he has to go in the phases to make sure his switch can parralel. If it is a good system, all he has yo do is close it.

Okay, so you build a line. Feed high, loadside low. Now, you build another circuit and tie it into your existing circuit to create a loop feed, and now your able to take load off the existing circuit and put it on your new one. So you move your open down your old circuit. Your "loadside" has now become your lineside. Do you go and fix that?? (Probably not). And, like Poot said, if you install a switch you always phase it before you drive away. If you haven't phased it, it's not operable until you do.

[dooghi]

Hotwiretammer is spot on the system always changes and you must keep it in phase. Out here we have a line going north for a mile or three, then it turns and goes west for several miles, a few irrigation banks and farmsteads. Then it turns north again, but a couple of wells are out to the east so it turns east and goes a half mile. Hard to keep A in the right spot.
At the first mile it also goes east as well and makes a few turns and services are on it, a few more turns and a few more miles it meets up with another circut off the same sub, or maybe another sub completly. I really do not care were A ended up as long as it is straight across the switch blade.
We do try to put phasing on all corners and transformer banks and on the taps that come off the main feeders. We have even taken the time to put tags up on old lines to help with the trouble shooting.

[bobbo]

The job orders where I was from was dead end to dead end. If your job order was make this work kind of thing then you couldnt have simple rules. But where I was from we rebuilt the whole cicuit. So if you went 5feet higher on your dead end you could follow thos simple rules. But when you have a good property and wants there systems like how the old men built stuff, and your inspector is old way old man, and your foreman probably worked withHenru Miller himself. You are going to tap it one way. You are going to build it the right way. You are going to build no traps for the next guy. And yes if you have to you are going to change one arm to show direction of feed. You built a simple easy system for the power company to maintain. There is no reason a phase should buck positions 4times in 3 miles. We dont tap off an existing dead end and fit it in. We build a new dead end. And yes AEP, Touchstone, and Ameren doesnt cut corners. You build it right. You dont patch a new circuit in. If you do things wrong. The next guy does things worse. And then you got a ****ed up system that doesnt make any sense. And then you have to buy a campus of 1000s of people with pencils scratching their heads trying to make thing work. And all you had to do was build it right the first time.

[hotwiretamer]

The job orders where I was from was dead end to dead end. If your job order was make this work kind of thing then you couldnt have simple rules. But where I was from we rebuilt the whole cicuit. So if you went 5feet higher on your dead end you could follow thos simple rules. But when you have a good property and wants there systems like how the old men built stuff, and your inspector is old way old man, and your foreman probably worked withHenru Miller himself. You are going to tap it one way. You are going to build it the right way. You are going to build no traps for the next guy. And yes if you have to you are going to change one arm to show direction of feed. You built a simple easy system for the power company to maintain. There is no reason a phase should buck positions 4times in 3 miles. We dont tap off an existing dead end and fit it in. We build a new dead end. And yes AEP, Touchstone, and Ameren doesnt cut corners. You build it right. You dont patch a new circuit in. If you do things wrong. The next guy does things worse. And then you got a ****ed up system that doesnt make any sense. And then you have to buy a campus of 1000s of people with pencils scratching their heads trying to make thing work. And all you had to do was build it right the first time.

hmm... still having trouble with the fact that you change your corner poles everytime you move your opens on a circuit so that the "feed" is high. Not very cost affective!!

I'm gonna have to read up on where to find AEP, Touchstone, and Ameren properties to check those perfect systems out.

[Orgnizdlbr]

Um, I'm confused, someone help me out with this one.......move your N.O. tie pole and if the configuration changes you go back and re frame so the arms are in the right place relative to your feed, what generous, cash flush utility do you work for????? Let me guess, they bring you in on saturday and sunday to do this work too, right.........??

[hotwiretamer]

I have a feeling we must be talking about Rural, simple, radial circuits.

[lewy]

If I am extending a radial line I want to keep all of my corners square, if I am tieing two lines together in a loop I would know the phasing at both ends & make adjustments at 1 corner to keep everything in phase & obviously phase at an open switch. I don,t think it is possible to know phasing based on geography in a loop system when you have multiple junctions. Everything should be well marked & phased while trying to keep your corners square.

[rob8210]

Yeah I agree HWT , there is no way on any kind of a larger looped system that it can be that simple. One place I worked years ago on new vertical construction the phasing was red, white , blue from the top. Good construction to maintain your phasing standards on , but , you always had to match to an existing line somewhere at both ends, sometimes that took a bit of thinking!

[bobbo]

Was in California. With young guys who knew everything about linework, and the men who taught them were evrn younger. Told them feed is built above the tap. "we dont do that here." Watched four men build the worst contraption God ever created. And it was a I love myself party. Then I asked them when you have to ground the line. You have to put your ground 4 feet above hot phases. All I got was more hatred. Some people gave thes guys tickets, all in their 20s and early 30s, and never showed them the right way of doing things. Thats dangerous. In their heads they really believe they are great. Do you know whats even scarier, every t shirt they owned was "Fireman need heroes" and "God created lineman to give you light ". All the kickass lineman outside this state just go to work. Get their work done and go home. Been on crews where we were so together, we didn't talk to eachother and we got 4poles in the ground in a day. Been on crews, did 80 pole job in two weeks reconductor all new equipment. That was the best crew I was on. Here its just a Pride party. You listen to these accidents at the safety meetings, and you would be amazed at the stupidity. In sixteen years of doing this, never got hurt, and never had anyone hurt on my crew.

[bobbo]

On a loop aren't you going to have NO and NC? And the direction of feed is going to go by your NO NC If you have an irregular system you send a crew out to make repairs to make it regular again. Or is it a parllell loop system where everything is hot all the time, like Detroit. Your saying radial and loop a lot and there has to be switches and opens somewhere on your system that are assigned? Maybe thats the problem, you are making it too complicated. Jack the voltage to 19.9/34.5 wear some class 4s. Throw some tall laminates and steel on the corners. Put some T2 795 as your feed conductor.Then you get rid of most of your substations and alot of unnecessary equipment that makes your systems complicated.

[rcdallas]

Had a pretty old school foreman that at the time I thought was loosing it when I first worked with him. I'd be up on a pole and what I would think would be the most simple task he'd be on the ground bend the wire this way; move it that way, blah blah blah. Everything from using a crescent wrench to a pair of channel locks.

Covered up everything like it went out of style.

As I started working primary under his watchful eye I knew how he wanted things done and did them with out being told. All the stuff he preached makes perfect sense. Little stuff like when running jumpers you put your connector going towards the feed. In a perfect world if everything was built like that you could be on any system and tell what the direction of feed was.

[bobbo]

Well splain to me what kinda lineman would ever put up switches that didnt phase across? You realize of course that just one uh oh would change rotation on every transformer bank from that point on, not to mention that it would never be able to be switched hot. I just dont see that happenin by trained professionals.
I will agree however that it would be much easier to troubleshoot and or balance load if the phasing was easily identified.
in Ca. That is regular procedure. I thinks its stupid too. But you have Gods gifts to linework who build a lot of traps!

[lewy]

On a loop aren't you going to have NO and NC? And the direction of feed is going to go by your NO NC If you have an irregular system you send a crew out to make repairs to make it regular again. Or is it a parllell loop system where everything is hot all the time, like Detroit. Your saying radial and loop a lot and there has to be switches and opens somewhere on your system that are assigned? Maybe thats the problem, you are making it too complicated. Jack the voltage to 19.9/34.5 wear some class 4s. Throw some tall laminates and steel on the corners. Put some T2 795 as your feed conductor.Then you get rid of most of your substations and alot of unnecessary equipment that makes your systems complicated.

Our system is a multiple loop system between several stations & yes everything is hot, with a ton of single in line switches as well as gang operated, also with 900 amp & 200 amp risers as well as U.G. switch gear. A lot of our distribution is 27.7/16 kv, so it would be impossible to I.D. phasing on the O.H. based on geography.

[bobbo]

Worked with giys that no everything about the complex stuff and no nothing about s,imple stuff. They know how to parrallel a 480 with a ground but they put a service together, with a hot leg first. They can read a circuit map. Know switching procedures, inside out, but they dont know the simplest stuff. In Ca, they got this GO95 thing. Everyone prides themselves on knowing it inside out. But if you go crew to crew, service center to service center, company to company, It gets so mangled by interpretation that people dont build for the next guy. I have worked on a lot of properties and the best ones are the ones are the ones that keep it simple. Coop spec is probably the best spec in the world. Ground everything around the phases. And the system will isolate itself. Aep specbook, actually has place small coil at the bottom of direct burial riser, so you jave slack whenever you need it, to splice it out, toput a new pothead, etc. On their spec book you jave a picture and measurements that tell you what to build, and there is no interpretation. People need to get back to simple stuff.

[hotwiretamer]

Worked with giys that no everything about the complex stuff and no nothing about s,imple stuff. They know how to parrallel a 480 with a ground but they put a service together, with a hot leg first. They can read a circuit map. Know switching procedures, inside out, but they dont know the simplest stuff. In Ca, they got this GO95 thing. Everyone prides themselves on knowing it inside out. But if you go crew to crew, service center to service center, company to company, It gets so mangled by interpretation that people dont build for the next guy. I have worked on a lot of properties and the best ones are the ones are the ones that keep it simple. Coop spec is probably the best spec in the world. Ground everything around the phases. And the system will isolate itself. Aep specbook, actually has place small coil at the bottom of direct burial riser, so you jave slack whenever you need it, to splice it out, toput a new pothead, etc. On their spec book you jave a picture and measurements that tell you what to build, and there is no interpretation. People need to get back to simple stuff.

When you need to locate your cable for another utility to excavate near the pole, how do you identify the "coil" next to the pole??:confused:

The spec should be updated to conduit.

[hotwiretamer]

We have two 230/69 subs. 5 69kv circuits, all are tied together looping the whole town. We
have seven 69/13.2 subs with about 30 distribution circuits. All are tied together in one way or another. Hundreds of pole mounted switchs (GOAB's). Between each switch, it is load balanced, so that if you have to change your N.O. on a circuit it transfers balanced load. So when load changes, subs need upgrade, bad urd feeders, etc. the circuits move around.
Our population is around 60k.

The theory of lineside top, and loadside bottom goes out the window, as there is no way a utility could afford, or explain why all the corners need to be rebuilt everytime the feed changes.

We have a few rural feeders, and of course when we extend, or do maintenance we follow the cardinal rule, as I am sure any utility would do, even in Calif.

[Highplains Drifter]

Worked with giys that no everything about the complex stuff and no nothing about s,imple stuff. They know how to parrallel a 480 with a ground but they put a service together, with a hot leg first. They can read a circuit map. Know switching procedures, inside out, but they dont know the simplest stuff. In Ca, they got this GO95 thing. Everyone prides themselves on knowing it inside out. But if you go crew to crew, service center to service center, company to company, It gets so mangled by interpretation that people dont build for the next guy. I have worked on a lot of properties and the best ones are the ones are the ones that keep it simple. Coop spec is probably the best spec in the world. Ground everything around the phases. And the system will isolate itself. Aep specbook, actually has place small coil at the bottom of direct burial riser, so you jave slack whenever you need it, to splice it out, toput a new pothead, etc. On their spec book you jave a picture and measurements that tell you what to build, and there is no interpretation. People need to get back to simple stuff.


Bobbo, I disagree with everything you said in your post. If you can not build it to look like the picture in any client’s spec book, then they will find someone who can. I have seen way to much simple in my career and one can tell by looking that it was not built with pride. I mean bolts sticking out 4 to 6 inches like someone wanted the birds to have perches. It always seems like the folks that can not catch on to detailed specs always want to justify their actions. And who said line-work was easy?

[bobbo]

A coil at the bottom is single phase, you dont have to identify. The coil is nice because if you put an auger the ground, you can dig up the riser and move the cable for ease (someone at AEP thought abput things).Three phase they would run conduit.+++ The simple stupid stuff matters in this trade. Build for the next guy is important. There is a mentality that doesnt care. I have seen it. Seen brand new bayonet cutouts on cap banks. Seen side tied tangent where the tie is touching the v brace bolt. Seen slack span primary wrapped around and kearney wrapped around a craked wood pin. Somebody repaied the next one right next to it with a steel pin. Seen a hasty dead end wrapped aroun wood pin. Seen an arm just float off adjacent pole, because I made an assumption that the arm and brace bolts someone would have put nuts! Worked three phase off the wood, 12 foot arm dead end, with an extension for series streetlight. And looked down the line, all single phase nothing tapped to one phase and street. Even thpugh it was idle we werent aloud to kill it, some dumb procedural thing was the excuse. Seen a lot of bad work and traps. And I am tired of the excuse "It is what it is." HPD you probably care about this trade. When things are tottally sh!t, a mess, no apprentice is going to mess with it. I will go up. I have messed with so much crappy work, I am fed up. We got span guys all over the place here, I call them push guys, there is no down guy at an end. Pole tops are hanging over the niddle of roads because services are fiddle tight, because they dont put lift poles in here. Seen six spans of span guys backing up duplex. Built by men with thick wallets and a lot of ego!

[hotwiretamer]

in Ca. That is regular procedure. I thinks its stupid too. But you have Gods gifts to linework who build a lot of traps!

Are you telling me that in Cal they cross phase there switches??:confused:

[Highplains Drifter]

A coil at the bottom is single phase, you dont have to identify. The coil is nice because if you put an auger the ground, you can dig up the riser and move the cable for ease (someone at AEP thought abput things).Three phase they would run conduit.+++ The simple stupid stuff matters in this trade. Build for the next guy is important. There is a mentality that doesnt care. I have seen it. Seen brand new bayonet cutouts on cap banks. Seen side tied tangent where the tie is touching the v brace bolt. Seen slack span primary wrapped around and kearney wrapped around a craked wood pin. Somebody repaied the next one right next to it with a steel pin. Seen a hasty dead end wrapped aroun wood pin. Seen an arm just float off adjacent pole, because I made an assumption that the arm and brace bolts someone would have put nuts! Worked three phase off the wood, 12 foot arm dead end, with an extension for series streetlight. And looked down the line, all single phase nothing tapped to one phase and street. Even thpugh it was idle we werent aloud to kill it, some dumb procedural thing was the excuse. Seen a lot of bad work and traps. And I am tired of the excuse "It is what it is." HPD you probably care about this trade. When things are tottally sh!t, a mess, no apprentice is going to mess with it. I will go up. I have messed with so much crappy work, I am fed up. We got span guys all over the place here, I call them push guys, there is no down guy at an end. Pole tops are hanging over the niddle of roads because services are fiddle tight, because they dont put lift poles in here. Seen six spans of span guys backing up duplex. Built by men with thick wallets and a lot of ego!

Bobbo, why is it that the lineman that can not drill straight holes is the one that always grabs the drill and starts drilling? http://bestsmileys.com/frustrated/9.gif