rayhjr
Supporting Member
I wanted to share something that happened a week ago at work.
I do electrical work and I'm on a new construction site. Our temporary Georgia Power goes from Pole to a Meter can on a backboard. Then next door to
a Fused Disconnect. Then about 500 feet of 2/0 Aluminum underground wire to Office Trailer area. There it goes to another disconnect that feeds a
Transformer. 480 3 phase in, 120 3 phase out feeding a large Panel that supplies all the Temp. power to job site, including several job trailers.
At a point almost half way of the underground, a large front end loader scraping the ground unearthed the buried wire and broke it. I'm on a 4-10's
schedule so I'm off on Fridays. This happened early Friday Morning. It was not noticed by the operator of the machine but the people in the job Trailers
saw the lights flicker then go off, along with the Air Conditioning and everything else.
I get a call and head down there. I get my Volt/Amp meter and I'm really hoping to find a blown fuse at Ga. Power disconnect. Wrong. I got 482 Volts
Phase to Phase on all phases and about 274 from phase to Ground on all three phases leaving the disconnect. I go to the other end and I got nothing
Phase to phase or phase to ground. It has to be broke in the ground. But where? Something to take up on Monday when we all are there.
We eventually found the break and did a repair to get thing back running. The temperature was in the high 90's all last week here in South Ga. HOT!
I guess my point in all of this is, that a wire, in moist Ground, broke by a Metal Blade, and not the first fuse blew. They are there to prevent overcurrent.
We have seen similar things in our hobby with fires and such and fuses still good. Melted pixels and props and a good fuse.
I do electrical work and I'm on a new construction site. Our temporary Georgia Power goes from Pole to a Meter can on a backboard. Then next door to
a Fused Disconnect. Then about 500 feet of 2/0 Aluminum underground wire to Office Trailer area. There it goes to another disconnect that feeds a
Transformer. 480 3 phase in, 120 3 phase out feeding a large Panel that supplies all the Temp. power to job site, including several job trailers.
At a point almost half way of the underground, a large front end loader scraping the ground unearthed the buried wire and broke it. I'm on a 4-10's
schedule so I'm off on Fridays. This happened early Friday Morning. It was not noticed by the operator of the machine but the people in the job Trailers
saw the lights flicker then go off, along with the Air Conditioning and everything else.
I get a call and head down there. I get my Volt/Amp meter and I'm really hoping to find a blown fuse at Ga. Power disconnect. Wrong. I got 482 Volts
Phase to Phase on all phases and about 274 from phase to Ground on all three phases leaving the disconnect. I go to the other end and I got nothing
Phase to phase or phase to ground. It has to be broke in the ground. But where? Something to take up on Monday when we all are there.
We eventually found the break and did a repair to get thing back running. The temperature was in the high 90's all last week here in South Ga. HOT!
I guess my point in all of this is, that a wire, in moist Ground, broke by a Metal Blade, and not the first fuse blew. They are there to prevent overcurrent.
We have seen similar things in our hobby with fires and such and fuses still good. Melted pixels and props and a good fuse.