On 7/10/2020 7:28 AM, dpb wrote:
On 7/9/2020 7:15 PM, wrote:
...

The crimps you see on submersible well conductors would be fine. It is
an irreversible crimp with silicone in the shrink tube insulation. The
problem is you need the right tool to make the crimp and the one for
6ga wire is probably $100. I did see a guy who went to work on a 36"
Harbor Fright bolt cutter with a grinder to make a big crimper. It
seemed to work OK.
...

A related sidebar Q? --

Is there anything/any way to repair knicked insulation on an underground
feeder?Â* Or just go ahead and cut to use the splice kit?

I managed to cut insulation on one side of feed to house during the work
around the old foundation when discovered the conduit out bottom of
outside junction box wasn't nearly as deep as had presumed Dad would
have left it...and, unusual for him, there was virtually no slack in
that line to be able to really do a good job wrapping it (...both of
which make me think he must have sublet that work instead of having done
himself--just not characteristic of something he would have done on own.
Â*He worked on remodel/refurbish of grandparents house for 5-6 years and
had to take off for real job of farming for extended periods during
summers so let out some of the work).

I sorta' cobbled a tape job w/ some of the cold-vulcanizing tape
followed up w/ electrical tape and then covered that with a good coating
of one of the liquid rubber products as water seal -- then covered it
after dried w/ another tape wrap.Â* We'll see how long it holds...

Was more than unhappy when discovered what had done...


3M makes a couple products that may be useful

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/All-3M-Products/Energy/Electrical-Construction-and-Maintenance/Wire-Cable/Splices/Low-Voltage-Splices-1-kV-/?N=5002385+8709319+8710679+8710904+8711017+8717973 +8730567+3294857497&rt=r3
are splice kits.
Some of them have a split plastic form that you snap over spliced UF (or
whatever). (Magic crimps not required.) There are 'funnels' that snap in
the ends of the form. It comes with a bag of epoxy - 2 part with a
partition in the middle. You pull the partition apart, mix the epoxy in
the sealed bag, and pour it in one of the 'funnels'.
IMHO the nicked wire should be separated out some so the epoxy can make
good contact with it.


https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/3M-Scotchkote-Electrical-Coating-Fd-15-oz-Can/?N=5002385+3294648449&rt=rud
Scotchkote liquid coating. Says for coating 3M vinyl tape for direct
burial. I would like to get some on the nick under the tape first.
Should be better than what you used.
If this was to be inspected I would like to see better instructions.

I have used both of them.
Both have a mystical ability to get on everything, including
screwdrivers in your basement.

On 7/12/2020 4:06 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 7/10/2020 7:28 AM, dpb wrote:
On 7/9/2020 7:15 PM, wrote:
...

The crimps you see on submersible well conductors would be fine. It is
an irreversible crimp with silicone in the shrink tube insulation. The
problem is you need the right tool to make the crimp and the one for
6ga wire is probably $100. I did see a guy who went to work on a 36"
Harbor Fright bolt cutter with a grinder to make a big crimper. It
seemed to work OK.
...

A related sidebar Q? --

Is there anything/any way to repair knicked insulation on an
underground feeder?Â* Or just go ahead and cut to use the splice kit?

I managed to cut insulation on one side of feed to house during the
work around the old foundation when discovered the conduit out bottom
of outside junction box wasn't nearly as deep as had presumed Dad
would have left it...and, unusual for him, there was virtually no
slack in that line to be able to really do a good job wrapping it
(...both of which make me think he must have sublet that work instead
of having done himself--just not characteristic of something he would
have done on own. Â*Â*He worked on remodel/refurbish of grandparents
house for 5-6 years and had to take off for real job of farming for
extended periods during summers so let out some of the work).

I sorta' cobbled a tape job w/ some of the cold-vulcanizing tape
followed up w/ electrical tape and then covered that with a good
coating of one of the liquid rubber products as water seal -- then
covered it after dried w/ another tape wrap.Â* We'll see how long it
holds...

Was more than unhappy when discovered what had done...


3M makes a couple products that may be useful

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/All-3M-Products/Energy/Electrical-Construction-and-Maintenance/Wire-Cable/Splices/Low-Voltage-Splices-1-kV-/?N=5002385+8709319+8710679+8710904+8711017+8717973 +8730567+3294857497&rt=r3

are splice kits.
Some of them have a split plastic form that you snap over spliced UF (or
whatever). (Magic crimps not required.) There are 'funnels' that snap in
the ends of the form. It comes with a bag of epoxy - 2 part with a
partition in the middle. You pull the partition apart, mix the epoxy in
the sealed bag, and pour it in one of the 'funnels'.
IMHO the nicked wire should be separated out some so the epoxy can make
good contact with it.


https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/3M-Scotchkote-Electrical-Coating-Fd-15-oz-Can/?N=5002385+3294648449&rt=rud

Scotchkote liquid coating. Says for coating 3M vinyl tape for direct
burial. I would like to get some on the nick under the tape first.
Should be better than what you used.
If this was to be inspected I would like to see better instructions.

I have used both of them.
Both have a mystical ability to get on everything, including
screwdrivers in your basement.

Thanks...the 3M product particularly would be handy. My looking and
found it...

What kind of shelf life does it have, you have any idea?

Certainly listed for purpose is good; I think the fix I used will
probably last my remaining lifetime as that stuff is pretty resiliant.
Iffen I were ambitious-enough, could uncover that location and clean it
back up and add some on top.

I do have a spot in that feed to the waterer in the south lot that still
need to get back to and splice--I tapped into the other side of the 240
feed to get it back on last winter but never got to fixing the other
side--if this side were to fail, I'd be stuck which would not be good
come winter time and need the water.

--

On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:31:07 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Saturday, July 11, 2020 at 11:13:25 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.


The service isn't fused at the xformer either, is it?

No. There is some protection at the primary of the transformer but the
secondary has no protection until you get to the service disconnect
enclosure. (the protection is for the transformer, not the customer)
The utility should be able to tell you what your (momentary) available
fault current is but it is going to be thousands of amps. The limiting
factor might be the size of your service drop. A single phase service
on a 50KVA pole pig will usually be in the range of 14ka but they are
really supposed to give you a calculated result..

On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.
The most notable difference is a 120/240 feeder will be 4 wires where
the service conductors are 3. (shared neutral and ground)
If you want to get more technical the service conductors run from the
transformer and the meter, Service entrance conductors run from the
meter to the service disconnect and if the service conductors are
underground, we call it a service lateral.

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

The most notable difference is a 120/240 feeder will be 4 wires where
the service conductors are 3. (shared neutral and ground)
If you want to get more technical the service conductors run from the
transformer and the meter, Service entrance conductors run from the
meter to the service disconnect and if the service conductors are
underground, we call it a service lateral.

This was all done long before anybody ever heard of running four wires
for anything. I don't know what Code revision introduced that, but
certainly wasn't around in 1958-59 when is what I now think is when this
was laid.

Now I am curious, though...will have to see if can actually find that
old roll or see if can see enough on the ends in the box at one end or
or the other.

I suspect if it should have been USE then that's probably what it is; I
just thought as above that would be the same as a feeder.

I still don't understand why there need be two separate cable types for
the purpose, though.

--

On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

The most notable difference is a 120/240 feeder will be 4 wires where
the service conductors are 3. (shared neutral and ground)
If you want to get more technical the service conductors run from the
transformer and the meter, Service entrance conductors run from the
meter to the service disconnect and if the service conductors are
underground, we call it a service lateral.

This was all done long before anybody ever heard of running four wires
for anything. I don't know what Code revision introduced that, but
certainly wasn't around in 1958-59 when is what I now think is when this
was laid.

Now I am curious, though...will have to see if can actually find that
old roll or see if can see enough on the ends in the box at one end or
or the other.

I suspect if it should have been USE then that's probably what it is; I
just thought as above that would be the same as a feeder.

I still don't understand why there need be two separate cable types for
the purpose, though.

I guess the wire companies want to stock a lot of different products.

On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.

Again, we're talking late 50s based on the breakers that are there; even
if Dad pulled new feed when he did the remodel that would have still
predated the '96 Code revision by 20 years.

You think of current Code and new construction...there's nothing at all
new on this place; the latest building is the double car garage and it
was built around 1950.

The elevator was first building on the place starting 1912-1914, house
built 15-16, barn went up as soon after WW I armistice was signed when
rationing of lumber was lifted...machine shed dates from the 20s,
farrowing house last in late 30s.

Oh--take it back -- the well house dates from early '60s--it's almost
brand new!

Anyway, so my thinking is OK -- it _is_ a feeder...but it ain't a-gonna'
be sprouting any fourth wire!

Thanks for the education...as always.

....

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 12:57:50 AM UTC-4, dpb wrote:
On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.


An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.

In article ,
says...

An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.





The purpose of the fuse in the primary of the transformer is to protect
the main line from being overloaded. While the power company would like
to save the transformer, the main thing is not to damage the main line
and put many out of power. Chances are that if there was a direct short
in one of the secondary lines it would blow that fuse before the
transformer went bad. Wiring can often stand a very high overload if
the time period is short. Fuses are usually designed to blow faster the
higher the overload.

Some transformers, especially in cities feed several houses. I lived in
the county but there were several houses close together. The power
transformer fed 4 houses. During a lightning storm the transformer blew
for some reason. With surge supressors on much of my house, all that
was damaged was the supressors and the oven. The built in oven only
blew an internal fuse and surge supressor in it. Several of the
neighbors lost their TV sets and a few other devices.

On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 23:57:43 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.

Again, we're talking late 50s based on the breakers that are there; even
if Dad pulled new feed when he did the remodel that would have still
predated the '96 Code revision by 20 years.

You think of current Code and new construction...there's nothing at all
new on this place; the latest building is the double car garage and it
was built around 1950.

The elevator was first building on the place starting 1912-1914, house
built 15-16, barn went up as soon after WW I armistice was signed when
rationing of lumber was lifted...machine shed dates from the 20s,
farrowing house last in late 30s.

Oh--take it back -- the well house dates from early '60s--it's almost
brand new!

Anyway, so my thinking is OK -- it _is_ a feeder...but it ain't a-gonna'
be sprouting any fourth wire!

Thanks for the education...as always.

...

It is still legal, being pre existing. You should have at least 3
ground electrode systems, one at the service disconnect and one at the
main building along with one at each out building. That is
particularly important if you are running 3 wire feeders.

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 06:23:28 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 12:57:50 AM UTC-4, dpb wrote:
On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.


An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.


The OC device on the primary of the transformer will be about 150% of
the transformer rating and of no help at all for a fault at the
customer end of the drop. As I said before, Available Fault Current
will be way up in the thousands off amps. Typical service rated
breakers are rated at 10,000-25,000 amps AIC. It will be printed on
the breaker. Usually the 10k AIC breakers are only 100a and in a lot
of cases, may not actually be enough for the computed AIC. That is why
they changed the rules in 2005. The AIC is supposed to be on a label
on the service although I still seldom see it in residential. PoCos
usually just provide a rounded off guess based on transformer size
instead of a real calculation. If that transformer gets changed, it is
likely to be what the PoCo had on the truck, not necessarily what they
had there before or even what they really need. For a while here, all
new transformers were 50 KVA. I am not sure why but I guess it is what
they had. There was a field full of them up at the power station at
the end of my street.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/50%2...ransformer.jpg

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 10:15:28 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...

An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.





The purpose of the fuse in the primary of the transformer is to protect
the main line from being overloaded. While the power company would like
to save the transformer, the main thing is not to damage the main line
and put many out of power. Chances are that if there was a direct short
in one of the secondary lines it would blow that fuse before the
transformer went bad. Wiring can often stand a very high overload if
the time period is short. Fuses are usually designed to blow faster the
higher the overload.

Some transformers, especially in cities feed several houses. I lived in
the county but there were several houses close together. The power
transformer fed 4 houses. During a lightning storm the transformer blew
for some reason. With surge supressors on much of my house, all that
was damaged was the supressors and the oven. The built in oven only
blew an internal fuse and surge supressor in it. Several of the
neighbors lost their TV sets and a few other devices.


I will ask my PoCo buddy about the primary protection the next time I
see him.

On 7/13/2020 10:44 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 23:57:43 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.

Again, we're talking late 50s based on the breakers that are there; even
if Dad pulled new feed when he did the remodel that would have still
predated the '96 Code revision by 20 years.

You think of current Code and new construction...there's nothing at all
new on this place; the latest building is the double car garage and it
was built around 1950.

The elevator was first building on the place starting 1912-1914, house
built 15-16, barn went up as soon after WW I armistice was signed when
rationing of lumber was lifted...machine shed dates from the 20s,
farrowing house last in late 30s.

Oh--take it back -- the well house dates from early '60s--it's almost
brand new!

Anyway, so my thinking is OK -- it _is_ a feeder...but it ain't a-gonna'
be sprouting any fourth wire!

Thanks for the education...as always.

...

It is still legal, being pre existing. You should have at least 3
ground electrode systems, one at the service disconnect and one at the
main building along with one at each out building. That is
particularly important if you are running 3 wire feeders.

Yes, agreed and way stuff is/was run...there are many places on the
farmstead...barn, elevator, silo, machine shed, two shop buildings, hog
house, ... to name the largest.

Actually, we have two service drops--the house and most everything is on
one; the other is the one put in when had both houses occupied and
separate utilities. When the original windmill gave out and drilled the
new well, it was more convenient to run from the west line so it and the
south shop, machine shed are fed from it. As noted above, the "little"
house was sold and moved to town so there's only those loads on that meter.

But, does make putting in backup genset a pain because have to have two
disconnects if want water (which w/ the cattle is the higher priority
than heat in the house would be).

--

On 7/13/2020 12:21 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 10:15:28 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...

An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.





The purpose of the fuse in the primary of the transformer is to protect
the main line from being overloaded. While the power company would like
to save the transformer, the main thing is not to damage the main line
and put many out of power. Chances are that if there was a direct short
in one of the secondary lines it would blow that fuse before the
transformer went bad. Wiring can often stand a very high overload if
the time period is short. Fuses are usually designed to blow faster the
higher the overload.

Some transformers, especially in cities feed several houses. I lived in
the county but there were several houses close together. The power
transformer fed 4 houses. During a lightning storm the transformer blew
for some reason. With surge supressors on much of my house, all that
was damaged was the supressors and the oven. The built in oven only
blew an internal fuse and surge supressor in it. Several of the
neighbors lost their TV sets and a few other devices.


I will ask my PoCo buddy about the primary protection the next time I
see him.

I dunno about that side definitely, either...the breaker in the
connection there only protects the feeder _TO_ the house, indeed.

There's about 20-30 ft between the pole the xfmr hangs on to the
service/meter pole, the SE goes down the meter pole thru the meter then
into junction box where the house feed ties to that disconnect and runs
back up the pole where there's connections to the SE to barn, elevator
and over to the silo...there's fused disconnect on it (silo) that then
feeds the waterer heaters plus convenience outlets/lights for the
feedlot/corrals/working chute area.

Places aren't that close together out here that one transformer does
multiple farmsteads and power demands are fairly substantial in
comparison to normal residence.

--

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 11:54:34 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 06:23:28 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 12:57:50 AM UTC-4, dpb wrote:
On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.


An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.


The OC device on the primary of the transformer will be about 150% of
the transformer rating and of no help at all for a fault at the
customer end of the drop. As I said before, Available Fault Current
will be way up in the thousands off amps.

If it's rated at 100KVA, that's only 400A, 150% is 600A. You
would get higher than that for whatever period it takes to blow
the primary fuse. So what happens if there is a direct short? The wire melts before the primary fuse can blow?




Typical service rated
breakers are rated at 10,000-25,000 amps AIC. It will be printed on
the breaker. Usually the 10k AIC breakers are only 100a and in a lot
of cases, may not actually be enough for the computed AIC. That is why
they changed the rules in 2005. The AIC is supposed to be on a label
on the service although I still seldom see it in residential. PoCos
usually just provide a rounded off guess based on transformer size
instead of a real calculation. If that transformer gets changed, it is
likely to be what the PoCo had on the truck, not necessarily what they
had there before or even what they really need. For a while here, all
new transformers were 50 KVA. I am not sure why but I guess it is what
they had.

That's only 200A, 150% is 300A, but the primary fuse won't
do anything for a direct short because the wire will melt
first?





There was a field full of them up at the power station at
the end of my street.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/50%2...ransformer.jpg

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:54:24 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/13/2020 12:21 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 10:15:28 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...

An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.





The purpose of the fuse in the primary of the transformer is to protect
the main line from being overloaded. While the power company would like
to save the transformer, the main thing is not to damage the main line
and put many out of power. Chances are that if there was a direct short
in one of the secondary lines it would blow that fuse before the
transformer went bad. Wiring can often stand a very high overload if
the time period is short. Fuses are usually designed to blow faster the
higher the overload.

Some transformers, especially in cities feed several houses. I lived in
the county but there were several houses close together. The power
transformer fed 4 houses. During a lightning storm the transformer blew
for some reason. With surge supressors on much of my house, all that
was damaged was the supressors and the oven. The built in oven only
blew an internal fuse and surge supressor in it. Several of the
neighbors lost their TV sets and a few other devices.


I will ask my PoCo buddy about the primary protection the next time I
see him.

I dunno about that side definitely, either...the breaker in the
connection there only protects the feeder _TO_ the house, indeed.

There's about 20-30 ft between the pole the xfmr hangs on to the
service/meter pole, the SE goes down the meter pole thru the meter then
into junction box where the house feed ties to that disconnect and runs
back up the pole where there's connections to the SE to barn, elevator
and over to the silo...there's fused disconnect on it (silo) that then
feeds the waterer heaters plus convenience outlets/lights for the
feedlot/corrals/working chute area.

Places aren't that close together out here that one transformer does
multiple farmsteads and power demands are fairly substantial in
comparison to normal residence.

Here they will put one house on a 25KVA, 2 will be on a 37 and 3 will
be on a 50. There are a couple of 50s here with 4 houses on them but I
bet that will change if they tear down those little 1300 sq/ft PreFIRM
shacks and put a 2000 Sq/Ft house there. A lot of this infrastructure
is 60 years old and predates wide spread use of A/C and other heavy
hitters.

This is the map of my primary. I am about 1/3d of the way down from
the tap off the distribution trunk.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Xfmr.jpg

On 7/13/2020 2:41 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:54:24 -0500, dpb wrote:
....

Places aren't that close together out here that one transformer does
multiple farmsteads and power demands are fairly substantial in
comparison to normal residence.

Here they will put one house on a 25KVA, 2 will be on a 37 and 3 will
be on a 50. There are a couple of 50s here with 4 houses on them but I
bet that will change if they tear down those little 1300 sq/ft PreFIRM
shacks and put a 2000 Sq/Ft house there. A lot of this infrastructure
is 60 years old and predates wide spread use of A/C and other heavy
hitters.

This is the map of my primary. I am about 1/3d of the way down from
the tap off the distribution trunk.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Xfmr.jpg

I don't know what this transformer is -- it was swapped out a few years
ago but was simply moved from somewhere else and on hand when the other
died. I'd guess it also is about that old.

That map would look more like

--------X ----- 3.5 mi -----X ----- 0.5 mi -----X ----- 1.5 mi -----X
|
|
... X ----- 1.5 mi -----|----- 1.5 mi ----X ------2.0 mi ---- X

|

And this is a pretty densely part of the county right around us. A
couple miles further you get into "the breaks" along the river bed and
range country that has only on ranch house for about 20 miles.

Which, of course, doesn't come close to approximating what it's like for
areas 150 mi west in SE CO or NE NM. The ground in NM is in Harding
County where the county seat is a village of 100 and there are ~40X the
number of cattle in the county as people. If you wanted to see if you
were cut out to be a hermit, there would be a good place to take a trial
run.

--

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:33:06 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 11:54:34 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 06:23:28 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 12:57:50 AM UTC-4, dpb wrote:
On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.


An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.


The OC device on the primary of the transformer will be about 150% of
the transformer rating and of no help at all for a fault at the
customer end of the drop. As I said before, Available Fault Current
will be way up in the thousands off amps.

If it's rated at 100KVA, that's only 400A, 150% is 600A. You
would get higher than that for whatever period it takes to blow
the primary fuse. So what happens if there is a direct short? The wire melts before the primary fuse can blow?

Dead shorts (bolted fault) are pretty rare on service conductors but
it would not surprise me if it burned out the crimp on the secondary
or blew the transformer first. I saw a service conductor laying in a
pool of salt water in the keys once and it danced around there until
most of the water boiled away.
We were on a second floor deck watching and it was quite a show.
The insulation on the conductors was mostly gone and the wire was
smoking.

Typical service rated
breakers are rated at 10,000-25,000 amps AIC. It will be printed on
the breaker. Usually the 10k AIC breakers are only 100a and in a lot
of cases, may not actually be enough for the computed AIC. That is why
they changed the rules in 2005. The AIC is supposed to be on a label
on the service although I still seldom see it in residential. PoCos
usually just provide a rounded off guess based on transformer size
instead of a real calculation. If that transformer gets changed, it is
likely to be what the PoCo had on the truck, not necessarily what they
had there before or even what they really need. For a while here, all
new transformers were 50 KVA. I am not sure why but I guess it is what
they had.

That's only 200A, 150% is 300A, but the primary fuse won't
do anything for a direct short because the wire will melt
first?

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 15:12:15 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/13/2020 2:41 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:54:24 -0500, dpb wrote:
...

Places aren't that close together out here that one transformer does
multiple farmsteads and power demands are fairly substantial in
comparison to normal residence.

Here they will put one house on a 25KVA, 2 will be on a 37 and 3 will
be on a 50. There are a couple of 50s here with 4 houses on them but I
bet that will change if they tear down those little 1300 sq/ft PreFIRM
shacks and put a 2000 Sq/Ft house there. A lot of this infrastructure
is 60 years old and predates wide spread use of A/C and other heavy
hitters.

This is the map of my primary. I am about 1/3d of the way down from
the tap off the distribution trunk.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Xfmr.jpg

I don't know what this transformer is -- it was swapped out a few years
ago but was simply moved from somewhere else and on hand when the other
died. I'd guess it also is about that old.

That map would look more like

--------X ----- 3.5 mi -----X ----- 0.5 mi -----X ----- 1.5 mi -----X
|
|
... X ----- 1.5 mi -----|----- 1.5 mi ----X ------2.0 mi ---- X

|

And this is a pretty densely part of the county right around us. A
couple miles further you get into "the breaks" along the river bed and
range country that has only on ranch house for about 20 miles.

Which, of course, doesn't come close to approximating what it's like for
areas 150 mi west in SE CO or NE NM. The ground in NM is in Harding
County where the county seat is a village of 100 and there are ~40X the
number of cattle in the county as people. If you wanted to see if you
were cut out to be a hermit, there would be a good place to take a trial
run.

There is usually a number on the transformer that tells you the size
in KVA (25/37/50 are common here)

In article ,
says...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.




That disconnect may be part of a breaker. I saw where one tripped and
the lineman pushed it in with a long pole. There may be 2 sperate
devices for all I know of it.

On 7/13/2020 4:14 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 15:12:15 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/13/2020 2:41 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:54:24 -0500, dpb wrote:
...

Places aren't that close together out here that one transformer does
multiple farmsteads and power demands are fairly substantial in
comparison to normal residence.

Here they will put one house on a 25KVA, 2 will be on a 37 and 3 will
be on a 50. There are a couple of 50s here with 4 houses on them but I
bet that will change if they tear down those little 1300 sq/ft PreFIRM
shacks and put a 2000 Sq/Ft house there. A lot of this infrastructure
is 60 years old and predates wide spread use of A/C and other heavy
hitters.

This is the map of my primary. I am about 1/3d of the way down from
the tap off the distribution trunk.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Xfmr.jpg

I don't know what this transformer is -- it was swapped out a few years
ago but was simply moved from somewhere else and on hand when the other
died. I'd guess it also is about that old.

That map would look more like

--------X ----- 3.5 mi -----X ----- 0.5 mi -----X ----- 1.5 mi -----X
|
|
... X ----- 1.5 mi -----|----- 1.5 mi ----X ------2.0 mi ---- X

|

And this is a pretty densely part of the county right around us. A
couple miles further you get into "the breaks" along the river bed and
range country that has only on ranch house for about 20 miles.

Which, of course, doesn't come close to approximating what it's like for
areas 150 mi west in SE CO or NE NM. The ground in NM is in Harding
County where the county seat is a village of 100 and there are ~40X the
number of cattle in the county as people. If you wanted to see if you
were cut out to be a hermit, there would be a good place to take a trial
run.

There is usually a number on the transformer that tells you the size
in KVA (25/37/50 are common here)

I'm sure there is (or at least was) but I can't read anything from the
ground...

--

On 7/13/2020 4:13 PM, wrote:
....

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
....

Ice and wind caused lines to touch a couple winters ago -- recloser
tried however many times and gave up.

I made the presumption didn't need call CMS 'cuz neighbors also were out
(of course) and the one to the south of us is on board so he always reports.

What I didn't know at the time is that we are the only one one the third
phase and it reopened after they reset manually. I didn't realize until
dark that everybody else did have power; we were the only ones that didn't.

By that time it was another two days before they could dispatch a crew
back this way the 50 miles for one lone farmstead given the widespread
ice damage they had farther east.

--

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 18:01:16 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.




That disconnect may be part of a breaker. I saw where one tripped and
the lineman pushed it in with a long pole. There may be 2 sperate
devices for all I know of it.

That is the disconnect.

I have a note in to the guy who knows but he hasn't gotten back to me.
The fuse might be that long tube below the disconnect.

Look at that stuff above the transformer, connecting it to the primary
on the top of the pole.

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 17:35:41 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/13/2020 4:13 PM, wrote:
...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
...

Ice and wind caused lines to touch a couple winters ago -- recloser
tried however many times and gave up.

I made the presumption didn't need call CMS 'cuz neighbors also were out
(of course) and the one to the south of us is on board so he always reports.

What I didn't know at the time is that we are the only one one the third
phase and it reopened after they reset manually. I didn't realize until
dark that everybody else did have power; we were the only ones that didn't.

By that time it was another two days before they could dispatch a crew
back this way the 50 miles for one lone farmstead given the widespread
ice damage they had farther east.

These days, with the smart meters, we don't even need to call. The
system knows which meters have stopped calling home.

On 7/13/20 4:13 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:33:06 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 11:54:34 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 06:23:28 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 12:57:50 AM UTC-4, dpb wrote:
On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.


An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.


The OC device on the primary of the transformer will be about 150% of
the transformer rating and of no help at all for a fault at the
customer end of the drop. As I said before, Available Fault Current
will be way up in the thousands off amps.

If it's rated at 100KVA, that's only 400A, 150% is 600A. You
would get higher than that for whatever period it takes to blow
the primary fuse. So what happens if there is a direct short? The wire melts before the primary fuse can blow?

Dead shorts (bolted fault) are pretty rare on service conductors but
it would not surprise me if it burned out the crimp on the secondary
or blew the transformer first. I saw a service conductor laying in a
pool of salt water in the keys once and it danced around there until
most of the water boiled away.
We were on a second floor deck watching and it was quite a show.
The insulation on the conductors was mostly gone and the wire was
smoking.

Typical service rated
breakers are rated at 10,000-25,000 amps AIC. It will be printed on
the breaker. Usually the 10k AIC breakers are only 100a and in a lot
of cases, may not actually be enough for the computed AIC. That is why
they changed the rules in 2005. The AIC is supposed to be on a label
on the service although I still seldom see it in residential. PoCos
usually just provide a rounded off guess based on transformer size
instead of a real calculation. If that transformer gets changed, it is
likely to be what the PoCo had on the truck, not necessarily what they
had there before or even what they really need. For a while here, all
new transformers were 50 KVA. I am not sure why but I guess it is what
they had.

That's only 200A, 150% is 300A, but the primary fuse won't
do anything for a direct short because the wire will melt
first?

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg

I thought neutrals were "always" on the bottom for a little more
safety.

On 7/13/2020 7:18 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 17:35:41 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/13/2020 4:13 PM, wrote:
...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
...

Ice and wind caused lines to touch a couple winters ago -- recloser
tried however many times and gave up.

I made the presumption didn't need call CMS 'cuz neighbors also were out
(of course) and the one to the south of us is on board so he always reports.

What I didn't know at the time is that we are the only one one the third
phase and it reopened after they reset manually. I didn't realize until
dark that everybody else did have power; we were the only ones that didn't.

By that time it was another two days before they could dispatch a crew
back this way the 50 miles for one lone farmstead given the widespread
ice damage they had farther east.

These days, with the smart meters, we don't even need to call. The
system knows which meters have stopped calling home.

They've gotten them in since then, but I'm not sure how far they've
gotten w/ the software system. Annual meeting is coming up soon; I'll
have to try to ask if Kirk doesn't say where that is in his status
summary...

--

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 19:25:15 -0500, Dean Hoffman
wrote:

On 7/13/20 4:13 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:33:06 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 11:54:34 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 06:23:28 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 12:57:50 AM UTC-4, dpb wrote:
On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.


An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.


The OC device on the primary of the transformer will be about 150% of
the transformer rating and of no help at all for a fault at the
customer end of the drop. As I said before, Available Fault Current
will be way up in the thousands off amps.

If it's rated at 100KVA, that's only 400A, 150% is 600A. You
would get higher than that for whatever period it takes to blow
the primary fuse. So what happens if there is a direct short? The wire melts before the primary fuse can blow?

Dead shorts (bolted fault) are pretty rare on service conductors but
it would not surprise me if it burned out the crimp on the secondary
or blew the transformer first. I saw a service conductor laying in a
pool of salt water in the keys once and it danced around there until
most of the water boiled away.
We were on a second floor deck watching and it was quite a show.
The insulation on the conductors was mostly gone and the wire was
smoking.

Typical service rated
breakers are rated at 10,000-25,000 amps AIC. It will be printed on
the breaker. Usually the 10k AIC breakers are only 100a and in a lot
of cases, may not actually be enough for the computed AIC. That is why
they changed the rules in 2005. The AIC is supposed to be on a label
on the service although I still seldom see it in residential. PoCos
usually just provide a rounded off guess based on transformer size
instead of a real calculation. If that transformer gets changed, it is
likely to be what the PoCo had on the truck, not necessarily what they
had there before or even what they really need. For a while here, all
new transformers were 50 KVA. I am not sure why but I guess it is what
they had.

That's only 200A, 150% is 300A, but the primary fuse won't
do anything for a direct short because the wire will melt
first?

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg

I thought neutrals were "always" on the bottom for a little more
safety.

The neutral is in the middle. The primary is on top.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg

I also found out the fuse is built into the cut out at the top between
the transformer and the primary.

In article ,
says...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg



The disconnect can either be just a disconnect or it can contain a fuse
that when blown will let the disconnect fall down so it can be seen from
the ground. I thought I remember seeing one of those that had fallen
down when a fuse blew, but it had been around 15 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_cutout

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 23:44:31 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg



The disconnect can either be just a disconnect or it can contain a fuse
that when blown will let the disconnect fall down so it can be seen from
the ground. I thought I remember seeing one of those that had fallen
down when a fuse blew, but it had been around 15 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_cutout


Yup that is what my FPL buddy told me this evening.

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 11:44:40 PM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg



The disconnect can either be just a disconnect or it can contain a fuse
that when blown will let the disconnect fall down so it can be seen from
the ground. I thought I remember seeing one of those that had fallen
down when a fuse blew, but it had been around 15 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_cutout


That's a good find. I've seen the disconnects on poles, never
knew about how the fuses worked, that they drop down to indicate
they are blown.

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 15:12:15 -0500, dpb posted for all of us to
digest...


And this is a pretty densely part of the county right around us. A
couple miles further you get into "the breaks" along the river bed and
range country that has only on ranch house for about 20 miles.

Which, of course, doesn't come close to approximating what it's like for
areas 150 mi west in SE CO or NE NM. The ground in NM is in Harding
County where the county seat is a village of 100 and there are ~40X the
number of cattle in the county as people. If you wanted to see if you
were cut out to be a hermit, there would be a good place to take a trial
run.

Ted Kaczynski? 8-)

--
Tekkie

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 20:17:00 -0400, posted
for all of us to digest...


On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 18:01:16 -0400, Ralph Mowery
wrote:

In article ,
says...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.




That disconnect may be part of a breaker. I saw where one tripped and
the lineman pushed it in with a long pole. There may be 2 sperate
devices for all I know of it.

That is the disconnect.

I have a note in to the guy who knows but he hasn't gotten back to me.
The fuse might be that long tube below the disconnect.

Look at that stuff above the transformer, connecting it to the primary
on the top of the pole.

The fuse is the white stick next to the insulator equal-distant
between your 13.5kv and neutral notations. Second insulator
from the top of the pole with a standoff from the pole.

--
Tekkie

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 20:18:59 -0400, posted
for all of us to digest...


On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 17:35:41 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/13/2020 4:13 PM, wrote:
...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
...

Ice and wind caused lines to touch a couple winters ago -- recloser
tried however many times and gave up.

I made the presumption didn't need call CMS 'cuz neighbors also were out
(of course) and the one to the south of us is on board so he always reports.

What I didn't know at the time is that we are the only one one the third
phase and it reopened after they reset manually. I didn't realize until
dark that everybody else did have power; we were the only ones that didn't.

By that time it was another two days before they could dispatch a crew
back this way the 50 miles for one lone farmstead given the widespread
ice damage they had farther east.

These days, with the smart meters, we don't even need to call. The
system knows which meters have stopped calling home.

And ringing the cash register :-(

--
Tekkie

On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 20:44:41 -0400, posted
for all of us to digest...


On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 19:25:15 -0500, Dean Hoffman
wrote:

On 7/13/20 4:13 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:33:06 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 11:54:34 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 13 Jul 2020 06:23:28 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 12:57:50 AM UTC-4, dpb wrote:
On 7/12/2020 10:34 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 21:46:20 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 6:21 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:02:57 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/12/2020 1:11 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 11:21:23 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/11/2020 10:12 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:54:13 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/10/2020 11:01 PM, wrote:
...

If it is on the line side of the meter, I suppose it is between the
PoCo and the worms, although you probably do own that service lateral.
FPL wants them in conduit.

Huh. Thought that was the whole point of there being UF-rated cable.

I have no idea what our local rural electric co-op specifies now, I'm
sure it's probably much more stringent than was 40+ years ago when Dad
was redoing the house and pulled the new feed underground and removed
the overhead wire to the house...

They want conduit, just for the extra protection.

Just a note, that is not UF. It is probably USE but I don't want to be
pedantic ;-)

One thing that makes them different is you can use UF inside, USE, not
so much. It is a smoke and product of combustion thing with that
insulation but it does perform better underground than UF.
I am not sure I have ever even seen service conductors direct buried.
It always seems to be in some kind of raceway.
...

It's UF-B I'm virtually positive...altho I didn't climb the loft to go
look at the jacket on the leftover roll end.


I am surprised the PoCo connected to it.

340.12 Uses Not Permitted. Type UF cable shall not be used
as follows:
(1) As service-entrance cable


Huh. I thought that was what "feeder" meant.

Art 100 definition
"Feeder. All circuit conductors between the service equipment,
the source of a separately derived system, or other power
supply source and the final branch-circuit overcurrent device."

Basically think of it as the wires between the main panel and a sub
panel but that sub panel could be what you think of as the main if the
service disconnect is outside.

Well, there is a a disconnect at the pole that is where these run from
to the main inside the house. So what does that make it?

Is the an over current device there? If so it is a feeder but it
should be 4 wires these days. Prior to the 96 code, you could get away
with 3.

Yes, there's breaker there...forget just what it's sized at.


An important difference, like I thought a "service" is not fused.
At least not on the service size, though according to Fretwell
there is a fuse on the primary side, which makes sense. Still
since a given transformer typically serves more than one service, you
could apparently put many times the current rating of the service
conductors through it before it blows. Probably not much of an
issue, since if something happens, a direct short is probably
far more likely, which I guess would blow the xformer fuse before
damage was done to the conductors.


The OC device on the primary of the transformer will be about 150% of
the transformer rating and of no help at all for a fault at the
customer end of the drop. As I said before, Available Fault Current
will be way up in the thousands off amps.

If it's rated at 100KVA, that's only 400A, 150% is 600A. You
would get higher than that for whatever period it takes to blow
the primary fuse. So what happens if there is a direct short? The wire melts before the primary fuse can blow?

Dead shorts (bolted fault) are pretty rare on service conductors but
it would not surprise me if it burned out the crimp on the secondary
or blew the transformer first. I saw a service conductor laying in a
pool of salt water in the keys once and it danced around there until
most of the water boiled away.
We were on a second floor deck watching and it was quite a show.
The insulation on the conductors was mostly gone and the wire was
smoking.

Typical service rated
breakers are rated at 10,000-25,000 amps AIC. It will be printed on
the breaker. Usually the 10k AIC breakers are only 100a and in a lot
of cases, may not actually be enough for the computed AIC. That is why
they changed the rules in 2005. The AIC is supposed to be on a label
on the service although I still seldom see it in residential. PoCos
usually just provide a rounded off guess based on transformer size
instead of a real calculation. If that transformer gets changed, it is
likely to be what the PoCo had on the truck, not necessarily what they
had there before or even what they really need. For a while here, all
new transformers were 50 KVA. I am not sure why but I guess it is what
they had.

That's only 200A, 150% is 300A, but the primary fuse won't
do anything for a direct short because the wire will melt
first?

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg

I thought neutrals were "always" on the bottom for a little more
safety.

The neutral is in the middle. The primary is on top.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg

I also found out the fuse is built into the cut out at the top between
the transformer and the primary.

Yup, I hadn't read this when I posted, sorry.

--
Tekkie

On Tue, 14 Jul 2020 00:01:16 -0700 (PDT), trader_4 posted for
all of us to digest...


On Monday, July 13, 2020 at 11:44:40 PM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg



The disconnect can either be just a disconnect or it can contain a fuse
that when blown will let the disconnect fall down so it can be seen from
the ground. I thought I remember seeing one of those that had fallen
down when a fuse blew, but it had been around 15 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_cutout


That's a good find. I've seen the disconnects on poles, never
knew about how the fuses worked, that they drop down to indicate
they are blown.

Not necessarily, they can weld themselves into the holder if
the clamps at the top loosen. They can become so hard to remove
the PoCo has to shut the primary down to fix it. Around here
where we have many trees in wires and the utility was less than
diligent in pruning as a firefighter I witnessed a few
spectacular shows.

--
Tekkie

On Wednesday, July 15, 2020 at 9:24:58 AM UTC-4, bud-- wrote:

The wire from the cutout attaches to the primary feed with a clamp that
has a ring on the end of a screw, barely visible. A lineman can attach
a hot stick to the ring, unscrew the clamp, and safely disconnect the
cutout and transformer.


I watched a lineman pull one of those cutouts on a humid and very overcast (so fairly dim light) day.

He pulled fast, with a hard yank. The arc that followed the cutout down and away was almost 2 feet long and looked like a miniature lightning bolt. It was not bright, I wouldn't have seen it on a sunny day.

On 7/12/2020 3:12 PM, dpb wrote:
On 7/12/2020 4:06 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 7/10/2020 7:28 AM, dpb wrote:
On 7/9/2020 7:15 PM, wrote:
...

The crimps you see on submersible well conductors would be fine. It is
an irreversible crimp with silicone in the shrink tube insulation. The
problem is you need the right tool to make the crimp and the one for
6ga wire is probably $100. I did see a guy who went to work on a 36"
Harbor Fright bolt cutter with a grinder to make a big crimper. It
seemed to work OK.
...

A related sidebar Q? --

Is there anything/any way to repair knicked insulation on an
underground feeder?Â* Or just go ahead and cut to use the splice kit?

I managed to cut insulation on one side of feed to house during the
work around the old foundation when discovered the conduit out bottom
of outside junction box wasn't nearly as deep as had presumed Dad
would have left it...and, unusual for him, there was virtually no
slack in that line to be able to really do a good job wrapping it
(...both of which make me think he must have sublet that work instead
of having done himself--just not characteristic of something he would
have done on own. Â*Â*He worked on remodel/refurbish of grandparents
house for 5-6 years and had to take off for real job of farming for
extended periods during summers so let out some of the work).

I sorta' cobbled a tape job w/ some of the cold-vulcanizing tape
followed up w/ electrical tape and then covered that with a good
coating of one of the liquid rubber products as water seal -- then
covered it after dried w/ another tape wrap.Â* We'll see how long it
holds...

Was more than unhappy when discovered what had done...


3M makes a couple products that may be useful

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/All-3M-Products/Energy/Electrical-Construction-and-Maintenance/Wire-Cable/Splices/Low-Voltage-Splices-1-kV-/?N=5002385+8709319+8710679+8710904+8711017+8717973 +8730567+3294857497&rt=r3

are splice kits.
Some of them have a split plastic form that you snap over spliced UF
(or whatever). (Magic crimps not required.) There are 'funnels' that
snap in the ends of the form. It comes with a bag of epoxy - 2 part
with a partition in the middle. You pull the partition apart, mix the
epoxy in the sealed bag, and pour it in one of the 'funnels'.
IMHO the nicked wire should be separated out some so the epoxy can
make good contact with it.


https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/3M-Scotchkote-Electrical-Coating-Fd-15-oz-Can/?N=5002385+3294648449&rt=rud

Scotchkote liquid coating. Says for coating 3M vinyl tape for direct
burial. I would like to get some on the nick under the tape first.
Should be better than what you used.
If this was to be inspected I would like to see better instructions.

I have used both of them.
Both have a mystical ability to get on everything, including
screwdrivers in your basement.

Thanks...the 3M product particularly would be handy.Â* My looking and
found it...

What kind of shelf life does it have, you have any idea?

3M would likely tell you more than you want to know.

The splice kits have 2 part epoxy in separate partitions in a plastic
bag. Should have a good shelf life. There are different configurations.
I think one of them is a tap.

Scotchkote is in a can kinda like PVC pipe cement. When I used it long
ago the cap had a wire with a dauber on the end, like pipe cement. The
goo is likely to get on the can opening and threads making it hard to
reseal and also gluing the lid to the can. Goo could be removed with a
solvent. I would guess it has a shelf life similar to PVC cement -
pretty good until opened.


Certainly listed for purpose is good; I think the fix I used will
probably last my remaining lifetime as that stuff is pretty resiliant.
Iffen I were ambitious-enough, could uncover that location and clean it
back up and add some on top.

I do have a spot in that feed to the waterer in the south lot that still
need to get back to and splice--I tapped into the other side of the 240
feed to get it back on last winter but never got to fixing the other
side--if this side were to fail, I'd be stuck which would not be good
come winter time and need the water.

--

On 7/13/2020 9:44 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

Dunno. Never saw the primary fuse open tho, maybe there isn't one. I
know there is a recloser on the primary somewhere that can open and
automatically reset but you usually only see that with a fault on the
primary, like a pole down.
I have seen plenty of transformers blow without taking out the
primary.
That is really not my area of expertise but next time I see my FPL guy
I will ask him.

If there is a fuse, it needs to be at the top where that disconnect
ring is.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/transformer.jpg


This is similar to what runs down my alley and is common throughout the
city.

My secondary rack - "120/240" - has the neutral as the center wire.
Looks like your neutral is on top (where service drop support connects).

One phase of the 3-phase distribution runs down my alley and is 8kV
phase to neutral/earth (about 13.5kV phase-to-phase).

My secondary neutral is bonded to the transformer-can. The can is the
primary neutral. My primary neutral is the same as the secondary
neutral running in the secondary rack.

Any pole with a transformer (and some others) have the neutral connected
to an earthing electrode. Some are ground rods. I think some are disks
on the bottom of the pole. Neither is likely very effective, but there
are may of them in the system.

Most transformers here have a fuse, like in your picture. The
transformer I am on is connected directly to the primary and has an
internal overload. It is reset using a "hot stick" on a lever on the
side of the transformer.

The wire from the cutout drops to an insulator attached to the
transformer can. I presume this is a lightning arrester that directly
limits the voltage across the primary.

The wire from the cutout attaches to the primary feed with a clamp that
has a ring on the end of a screw, barely visible. A lineman can attach
a hot stick to the ring, unscrew the clamp, and safely disconnect the
cutout and transformer.


The disconnect can either be just a disconnect or it can contain a fuse
that when blown will let the disconnect fall down so it can be seen from
the ground. I thought I remember seeing one of those that had fallen
down when a fuse blew, but it had been around 15 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_cutout


I have seen some of them that were blown. When you know what it is it
is pretty obvious.

On 7/15/2020 9:05 AM, bud-- wrote:
On 7/12/2020 3:12 PM, dpb wrote:
On 7/12/2020 4:06 PM, bud-- wrote:
....

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/3M-Scotchkote-Electrical-Coating-Fd-15-oz-Can/?N=5002385+3294648449&rt=rud

Scotchkote liquid coating. Says for coating 3M vinyl tape for direct
burial. I would like to get some on the nick under the tape first.
Should be better than what you used.
If this was to be inspected I would like to see better instructions.

I have used both of them.
Both have a mystical ability to get on everything, including
screwdrivers in your basement.

Thanks...the 3M product particularly would be handy.Â* My looking and
found it...

What kind of shelf life does it have, you have any idea?

3M would likely tell you more than you want to know.

Yeah, but what's the fun in that...

The splice kits have 2 part epoxy in separate partitions in a plastic
bag. Should have a good shelf life. There are different configurations.
I think one of them is a tap.

Scotchkote is in a can kinda like PVC pipe cement.Â* When I used it long
ago the cap had a wire with a dauber on the end, like pipe cement.Â* The
goo is likely to get on the can opening and threads making it hard to
reseal and also gluing the lid to the can.Â* Goo could be removed with a
solvent.Â* I would guess it has a shelf life similar to PVC cement -
pretty good until opened.

....

Thanks...was just wondering about whether might be one of those staples
to have on the shelf or if would always be (like the PVC cement) dried
up when did need it so have to go to town, anyway.

That's kinda' the answer figured 3M would tell me...

--

On 7/15/2020 7:46 AM, TimR wrote:
On Wednesday, July 15, 2020 at 9:24:58 AM UTC-4, bud-- wrote:

The wire from the cutout attaches to the primary feed with a clamp that
has a ring on the end of a screw, barely visible. A lineman can attach
a hot stick to the ring, unscrew the clamp, and safely disconnect the
cutout and transformer.


I watched a lineman pull one of those cutouts on a humid and very overcast (so fairly dim light) day.

He pulled fast, with a hard yank. The arc that followed the cutout down and away was almost 2 feet long and looked like a miniature lightning bolt. It was not bright, I wouldn't have seen it on a sunny day.


Yeabut - wheres the video????


Had one blow about a block away from a quite solid short. It was a loud
bang inside with windows closed.

An 8kV wire broke midspan. The source end fell against a box for cable
distribution and put a nice burn mark on the corner. Someone moved the
wire out of the street. He was real lucky the wire faulted, else he
would probably be dead instead of the feed. The other part of the wire
came down in an alley. It was part of a 3-phase tap. Question was
whether it was live or dead. When the lineman moved it (with insulated
gloves) it arced through several times to the concrete. It fed a
3-phase transformer for a building - that apparently back-fed it. I
think these wires are "covered", not "insulated".