138 kV switch malfunction 

Hey Everyone! While filming some 138Kv switching, things didn't quite go as planned. I was initially going to scrap the video, but decided it would be great to share and emphasize the importance of stopping all work when a problem is encountered. This applies to all jobs! During routine work, if ever you encounter a situation that isn't consistent with the pre job discussion - Stop and reassess the situation. Make sure everyone involved in the work is aware and come up with a new plan! Cheers all!

Love the fact you showed the geocache you found and talked about it briefly. Being a geocache myself it's great to see these little nuggets shared

Love that he's gonna transfer the geocache over to the new pole! What a guy!!

Love that you show the methodical process required for something as superficially simple as flipping a switch. Things may not have went as planned but I definitely learned something. Cheers!

Bravo on your safety procedures. It reminds me of when I worked in a nuclear power plant. I was security but even though I didn't do electrical work, our leadership strongly emphazied that if we got any unexpected result, stop, make the work safe, and notify whoever you needed to notify. I miss it.

Retired power plant electrician, our system was 345KV. Nice arc show when it was foggy/humid. Nice to see different equipment being used out there. New or old.

I wish more linemen would transfer caches to the new pole when you replace one! Thanks for pointing it out and bringing awareness!

Brings me memories. Years ago had to do a computer deployment for an energy company, which included a mandatory 4 day electrical safety course. No problems working in the offices but having to walk into the protected switching park to access the local main control room, surrounded by lots of lattice structures with very heavy HV cables strung everywhere. Safety was drilled in: Stay on the concrete path. Don't walk on the gravel on either side. If you fall or slip don't move and call for help. The control team will come looking for you if you are not there in 5 minutes. And the omnipresent angry buzzing like walking into a hornets nest was extremely unsettling and oppressive! I did ask the team why the big safety certifications just to drag in and out a bunch of computers, and the offhanded sarcastic comment from the site supervisor was to the tune of "if one of those 63kv lines strung across the parking lot falls to ground, all the earth connectors in the building will go live. And if you plug in a computer at that time, it will kill you. But at least you will know why you died". I will admit that the short 100 metre walk to that general control centre was genuinely scary! All the time remembering the spark gap distances for any energised conductors we were given in the training. Getting up close and personal to enough power to run a region with a town of 100 000 people and an industrial zone containing one of the countries largest oil refineries was awe inspiring. And yeah, scary!

You are the true heroes. Life stops in its tracks when the power goes out. Thank you for keeping us alive!

Bob - you're a real stand-up guy. I bet they like you a lot at your company...

Good emphasis on stopping when switching doesn't go correct and also to verify that the contacts fully went in and rolled. I know you know, but I am sure not many outside the industry understand how most HV switches operate. The movable contact actually rolls inside the jaws BEFORE it starts to move out of the jaws. Opposite when it's closed. The movable contact fully inserts in to the jaws and then it rotates to make the solid connection and also performs a "wipe" as it seats to help clear any corrosion on the contacts. The movable contact isn't round, it has ears, per se on it that allows it to move in and out of the jaws with no friction and then rotate to close the connection. Speaking of corrosion, the contacts are usually silver plated, since silver oxide conducts. Vs coper oxide that is a bad conductor and will not make a good connection. That's why when performing maintenance on most HV switches you do NOT use anything more abrasive than a light Scotch-brite. The silver plating is thin and a wire brush could remove the silver plating, leaving just the copper that can lead to hot spots later down the road. As archaic as some substation equipment may look, there is a lot of engineering and lessons learned that is going on, even with something as simple as this switch. Some more 138kV switch action!! And yes, some of them needed maintenance and should not be that hard to operate. A few did end up breaking over the years. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K8cMSDwZkDU.html

I work now for a large research center of a global corporation as an electrician. We work everything from the outlets and equipment all the way out to the yard where we have 138KV incoming for the whole facility. They make use dawn the 40cal suits et al for any manual switching. But like you said, it is rather easy if you just follow the check list. Cool videos.

I wish you would elaborate more on the worst case scenario. What not to do is equally important to know.

You are the best lineman I have ever seen on RU-vid. Keep up the good work.

Thank you Aaron as always Brother for showing everyone real-time electrical safety. You've taught myself and many other upencoming Lineman safe work practices! God bless, stay safe 🙏 👍👊

Your videos are just packed with information and interest. Thank you for such consistent content. Cheers from England.

I like the methodology. It's a lot like railroads. When a Maintenance-of-Way (MoW) gang is working a problem, such as a malfunctioning power switch. A "power switch" is a motorized switch for switching a train to one track or another at a junction, such as a passing siding. It can be remotely operated by the dispatcher, or manually operated by a train or ground crew on site. With train traffic still moving in the area, the gang foreman will call the subdivision dispatcher via radio to get a "track and time" warrant to occupy that section of track. The warrant will specify the warrant #, the exact milepost location where work is being accomplished, the track limits (from milepost # to milepost #), and whether the track is a main line, a siding, or a branch line. The time declared for the warrant depends largely on traffic density. If the track is low density, such as an industrial lead or a secondary branch line, the warrant will specify a time limit. If the track sees high density, such a section of a transcontinental line, the warrant will read "joint with dispatcher until called." This means the MoW crew must clear the site for approaching traffic when the dispatcher so informs the foreman. The warrant is cleared, allowing the train to proceed at a reduced speed. Once clear, the track foreman will call the dispatcher to create a new track-and-time warrant with the same information as the previous warrant. Obviously, a railroad is not an electrical transmission line, and vice versa. However, procedures for doing/completing work are similar. Fun fact: the rails on a railroad actually have a tiny current running through them, pushed by a very small voltage, maybe 2 or 3 VDC. Rails run in shunt circuits and are normally open between blocks. When a train runs over a shunt, it completes the circuit, which signals the dispatcher where that train is on the railroad. Shunts are also used to activate/deactivate grade crossing protection. While the two industries are miles apart in form and function, there are, nevertheless, similarities between both. Also, on a railroad, any signal or electrical apparatus needing maintenance is performed by a "signal maintainer." I thought you all might find that interesting. 🙂

This is a lineman, that works with standards and rules - like we germans do - great work and greetz from a german electrican ;)

Thank you for sharing your work on camera, very interesting. Stay safe 👍

Big juice!! Thx for keeping us warm! NJ

Love watching the videos buddy thanks for sharing

Thanks for what you do! Thinking about the things can go wrong on 138KV lines scares me. I think I'll stick to my 3.3V, 5V, and 12VDC systems thank you very much! 😀

This was an awesome video! I’m a residential apprentice, but I appreciate and learn from all aspects of the grid.

Thanks for the Video Aaron. Great details with the grounding and the defective air switch.

Thanks! A video showing best safety practice is great to see! On a related note, I’m sure you know this but maybe some of your viewers don’t: that grounding mat at the operating wheel you mentioned is an equipotential mat, to ensure your feet and hands are at the same voltage if a phase to ground fault should occur. Critical safety device, and as you say must be checked for continuity before operating the switch. Such a simple device can save a life!

I like your style of safety great job!

I kept staring at the communications tower behind you at around 1min 30 into the video thinking about work earlier today being called in to find the broken line on emergency call today, except dint usually scan above the lowest line's for issues, i respect your work and others who work on the low voltage and high voltage lines above ones i do work on

I only trim tree around power lines but find it fascinating on the inner workings of the system

Thank you, Aaron!

Thanks Aaron. Another informative video. 👊

Thanks for adding the space in the title. 🙂

Some years ago, part of the Bay Area had an "Oops!" blackout, during work on major lines like those: "PG&E blamed the outage, which affected more than 375,000 households and businesses in San Francisco and on the Peninsula, on construction workers who failed to remove a grounding apparatus before restoring power to substation equipment they were servicing. The utility also faulted a control room crew for turning off protective devices designed to confine any outages to the substation."

Massive respect. Enjoyed the insights. Subscribed.

Great work you do !

Fascinating.

Your channel is fantastic! Should have way more subscribers than channels that just make you lose brain cells when you watch them.

That looks like it would be quite a process to replace that switch. I would be interested in how it's done. Since you don't normally work in those areas, I appreciate what you did show with that. Thank you. Stay safe and God bless.

That's super impressive you're trained and capable of switching overhead, underground, and in the transmission substations. We have different departments for each of those so coordinating operations is kind of a nightmare for us sometimes.

Great work on another educational video!

Best job in the world! You have to be intelligent, understand everything about high voltages, work with your hands, have a bunch of colleagues that you can trust to the bone and you work outside in the fresh air!

What an interesting job.

That's a tremendous number of angry pixies...

Eveytime I watch an video, it make me want to be doing Line work!

So interesting to see how all this works

hi Aaron, we just had a one engine private plane get entangled in one of our 500 KV transmission towers this evening and they had to open them to rescue the pilot as well as removing the plane. Only took down one or two outdoor substations along with numerous other 69KV indoor substations. And about 85,000 customers on a cloudy, rainy sunday evening. jk

This was pretty interesting.

Very informative video. I'll have to re-watch...

Good job Aaron.

very interesting . ty .

If something ever seems off, check it. This is a good thing to keep in mind for most if not every industry. Including the field of structural engineering and architecture. Which is where I'm going. There have been lots of tragedies caused by people not double checking.

Good deal, Bob! As an equipment operator at a nuclear power plant, we have as stringent requirements as you. Good to see them followed so well.

Hey Bob yes I'm actually doing 2 projects. Haven't been on for a while because of me doing this. It's definitely alot of work

loved learning now the switches work I seen right away they were not making a good connection. NO Bs when dealing with electricity.

The Mr. Fixit in me wanted to give the breaker blade a good shove into place. 😂

You would be a great airline pilot, Bobsdecline.

Outstanding, simple comment

Thanks

Boy! I haven't heard that hum for many years! The 500 Kv is even louder.

I have great respect for linemen. I have started many arguments on work sites as to why pumers make more money over electricians considering the levels of danger.

Be careful as Always Erin have a great weekend

Differently a dangerous job and over the years a lot of men and women have been seriously injured and killed. I lost a second cousin who was a lineman and got electrocuted up in a bucket truck while repairing a line after a severe thunderstorm. Sad he left a wife and child. Be careful and always “ Safety “

Dope geo cash find

I hope you signed the geocache!

I just retired from CATV 41 years. I found a Geo Cash on my gate. Tossed it into the bush. They trespassed to get to the gate.

12:14 thanks for the shout out to the Relay Techs. 👍

Good evening, Aaron. My mistake on the voltage on our utility here in Montgomery County. They were 230 KV. There are a set of that runs from Montgomery to Howard County that are 500KV also. I did the old rule of thumb counting the rings on the insulators. But, yesterday made a call to one of my engineer friends and he confirmed the correct KV.

Failure is mandatory. What you do when failure occurs is what’s important.

Thanks for transferring the geocache. I don't know if everybody would have done that know it really shouldn't have been attached to your pole in the first place.

14:00 You should have taken the cache and joined, or at least looked into it. I've heard of it. Sounds fun if you have time for it (Certainly you don't), but maybe a friend. Cheers, love your videos, always learn something.

Always nice to see things like this. So many companies out there ignore the basics at times that it winds up costing time and money. Something as simple as "go flick that switch and make sure it's working right" can turn disastrous in a hurry if even the most simple of procedures aren't followed. Question I have is why didn't the two bars seat fully? Issue with the bars themselves, or with the rotating mechanism or ??? I'm surprised that the gearing didn't let it go past the 90 degree mark under force.... Curious now.... Stay safe up there!

Just found this channel, so maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like you're switching alone. Maybe we're spoiled were I work, but the switchmen I work with would never even entertain doing this kind of work alone. Stay safe out there.

The forbidden playground

I admire your willingness to do this job; I'm ok with 220 VAC but the kind of voltage that comes out to get you... 🤔

All sorts of work, electrical or not, changing/unexpected conditions are a huge risk for incidents.

This is why it can take a while to put the power back on after a cut. And I'm okay with it.

Still rocking those OCBs

Up Bro

I've been an electrician 52 years but will not mess with the big stuff, nope, sorry, don't want to be a pork chop well done!

Hey it’s a geocache😃 My favorite outdoor hobby:) You wouldn’t mind sending me the location of it so I can tell the owner they made it on RU-vid.

I’d be willing to bet a geocacher ran into that pole while staring at his GPS screen. 😂

A Cleaveland Price switch has the same style switch that would fix that problem 😉 if you don't feel like adjusting the interphase pipe to get the blades to fully seat in the jaws of the switches

The most I got shocked by was 200v while backfeeding a small transformer... 138Kv... is just... You'd blow up basically. That's why I respect what you guys do so much, many people don't think about these people except when there's some trouble and they don't have power, but when nothing happens it means they do their job :)

Brilliant video 👍 please leave your caption bar up for longer, we can read then. I have to keep rewinding and pausing, Thankyou.

Geocaching... that is awesome can I marked that off now that I seen it in your video.... hahahaha

at 3:24 I'm seeing how the rigid pipe is crimped down on the bond wire a couple times, in order to bond the pipe. I've never seen that method before... seems like a good cheat there! :) Easier than using bonding bushings or clamps i suppose.

I know first hand the effects of running a load on a bad switch. The line voltages will drop and cause havoc on everything downstream. Running Enterprise servers I ran Server APC units that monitored mains condition, and we would drop to 90Volts at time and resulted in many destroyed power supplies only rated down to 100 volts to operate. That is why i am so adamant of running 240V worldwide as if there is voltage sag, it will still be inside tolerances of most devices.

Nice video. Single person switching on live equipment is not allowed in Australian jurisdictions.

Every major electrical company should be getting fiberglass line poles soon.

I've been an electrician for 51 years...NO WAY would I even attempt to play this game of chance!

8:44 You got 3 finger gloves? Never seen those before, awesome!

An old Kearney double side break disconnect. Why do you have 2 ground paths? Is the ground mat bonded to the ground grid through the vertical drive pipe of the operator or is the braid between the ground grid and the vertical drive shaft just in addition to the multi-rev grounding device?

Cool video. Are there any work in switch yard that require working in pairs?

@Bobsdecline - Lineman blogger What is the normal cause/issue that would not allow it to fully close. Would it sometimes be how its been lined up or installed? or simply the mechanism is damaged?

Yeah nah im good at my current job thanks xD

I used to work in design of high voltage switchgear. One device was a life-tank 480kV 63kA breaker. These dead-tank devices looked strangely weird to me.

Wow that humming sound. Dayum thats some serious juice.

So you're saying if the load side is also connected you may not have been able to reopen in fear of an arcflash? What would be the procedure in that case?

I always told the new guys, when you’re in a substation yard, DON’T POINT 👆

If you were in Germany and done all of that high-voltage line work, you would see "Hochspannung: Lebensgefahr!" warning placards all over the substation. (It means "High voltage; danger of death!").

👍👊