A close look at overhead lines.

Thanks for sharing this Clive! It's not often you get to see this interesting stuff up close.

MarcT

Wow! I loved that look at Aerial Bundled Cable and the connectors used to hook up to them. I only get to see that stuff from a distance but love to take pictures of power poles packed with transformers and lines. That stuff is so heavy duty. Hats off to the men and women that work on them!

I used to live around the corner from an electricity museum (!), full of stuff like this (i.e. lines, insulators, transformers etc). Sadly, I never got around to visiting before I moved house. However, it feels as though a small part of those museum has been brought to me. Thanks, Clive!

OzRetrocomp

Clive can you please thank whoever who lent you the subject of this video? I guess it was the nice man from the Manx Beard Club. Best wishes.

Nuts 'n' Proud

Could that be the transmission wires to the transformers? They only get three phases and then convert down to a lower local voltage with a ground referenced neutral.

Big Clive

In the US, I don't see neutrals or grounds on power lines, just the 3 phases...Is this different and are we just crazy over here?

Daniel Kent

That plating on the copper bars is probably tin for extra corrosion protection.

As well as having light sensors there's a common time switch that shuts all the lights off at about 1am.

Big Clive

Fascinating stuff. I'll never look at overhead cables the same way again.

Cool demo. In BC where there are power poles, they do indeed use separate brach wires from pole to pole (after the pole transformer). From there they would attach street lamp wire directly to this, while connections to houses were with an ABC with 2 coloured hot wires wrapped around a bare support cable which is used as the neutral. On very old houses (1950s), I have seen separate strands to the houses with three separate insulators and insulated hot wires. The city lamp spare wire is a new one for me though on the ABC cable.

Vaughn B.

It must weaken it a bit, but it doesn't bite in too deep.

Big Clive

Here on the Isle of Man the ground it's harder to bury stuff due to the island being a big rock. So a lot of cable is overhead.

Big Clive

So easy to do....

Big Clive

really interesting, thanks Clive. Never saw this tech close up.

The grease in the connectors is Bicon X1 joint compound. We use it on the railway for all. 25KV AC and 750v DC connections. It prevents galvanic corrosion and reduces arc corrosion.

evilution

These spiky clamps seems to do a lot of damage to the wire. It looks like they pinched nearly completely through the strands. Wouldn't that weaken it?

I think I'd like the cherry-picker to play with too though...

Michael Thompson

I don't know where you live, but in Southern California, stacked cable is far more common than ABC-type arrangements. The only ABC-type cable I can recall seeing is premise-to-pole for single-phase (for houses), where the two live conductors are wrapped around each other-- only one of which is insulated. I don't recall ever seeing ABC for three-phase. In this instance, only the one phase was run pole-to-pole for a row of houses. Presumably, the other phases were distributed to other houses in the same way, to balance the load. For distribution, the type of (right-side) arrangement in Clive's photo is usually found in rural and some suburban areas. More typically, the phases will be 'stacked' horizontally on bars perpendicular to the pole, with a single bar for wooden poles, and more complicated arrangements for steel poles which carry more than one set of three-phase lines. The Wikipedia page for "overhead power line" has several example photos. Perhaps ABC is implemented in new construction, but there's little or no reason to replace existing infrastructure. This is just my observation, mind you; I'm not formally educated on our electric grid.

Justin Smith

Thanks Clive - you have answered several of my "I wonder why..." thoughts when looking at these overhead supplies. Am I now qualified to do my own connections? The copper going stiff could be age hardening or work hardening where it has been wobbling about in the wind. I am guessing that high current heating would have the opposite effect - if you are making things with copper and want to soften it to help with a bending or stretching process, you can heat it cherry red and allow to cool (annealing). Not that the protection device would allow an exciting 'cherry red' display along the street... (You never thought of that for the George Square Christmas lights?)

Keith Miller

I do not see wires stacked in Australia or that close to one another in older area's. All the new area's are all underground now and all new connections in any area are underground regardless of type.

Meanwhile Big Clive’s neighbors mysteriously lost power to their house.... 😆

Lostngone

Strange, I don’t see a lot of those wires stacked like that where I live(in the U.S.) I assume that means everything is bundled?

Lostngone

Darn. I spent all that time learning to hot-wire a cherry picker for nothing!

Mark Trombley

Thanks Clive, We have the old style bare copper cables... And several UPSs.

Nuts 'n' Proud