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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    northwest washington
    Posts
    135

    Default Failed Chance cutout pictures

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    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?
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    Last edited by PSE Lineman; 11-06-2006 at 07:30 PM. Reason: mis spelling

  2. #2

    Exclamation

    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.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    N.E. Mass.
    Posts
    2,030

    Default

    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.
    National Grid = Retired! US Army vet. 68 - 70
    As of April of 2010 I quit smoking! It's been hard but so far no butts! I am now an X smoker!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    northwest washington
    Posts
    135

    Default

    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...

  5. #5
    DuFuss Guest

    Default

    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?

  6. #6

    Exclamation

    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.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    northwest washington
    Posts
    135

    Default

    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.)

  8. #8

    Default

    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.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    northwest washington
    Posts
    135

    Default Another failed cutout

    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...
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  10. #10

    Default

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    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.

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