Cap Banks.......aka Bomb Squad

[Trbl639]

At least that's what we called it when we had to work on em!!

Is anybody still hooking up Cap banks the old way?

As in hanging the bank, and then running a span (or more) of 120V secondary for control voltage for it.........That's the way we did for umpteen years........

Most of new Cap banks I'm seeing that are being put up, all have 4 fused switches and a small 3/4KVA (.75KVA) pot built right on the rack with the caps.....seems like it would be less work, but might be confusing to some of the apes coming up, if they don't pay attention.........

I guess everything is changing too, seeing more and more stuff done now that we never used to do............

Like having a UG Dip on a pot pole, with 2 switches on the same pole.........

Like pulling a single phase lateral off of a pot pole, and hanging the fuse switch for the lateral on the same pole, by the pot switch, we used to do it, but we put the lateral switch on the first pole off the take-off.....to avoid confusion, and keep somebody from opening the wrong switch and getting hurt.........gotta keep your head screwed on...all the time!!!

Guess I'm just thinking about random stuff.........shoulder is acting up, hurting like a *****, and the pills haven't kicked in and I can't sleep!!!

See what you young hands have got to look forward to after hookin for 35-40 years.......and you're wore out and broke down!!!!!:D

[Special ED]

Most of our cap banks have a doughnut CT on b phase on the older ones and the newer ones have a insulator on B phase that acts as a CT to provide control power to the 3 oil switches on the rack with the caps..

Some but very few have the service ran for 120 to feed the controler..

With the CTs it makes for a nice install!

[THE KID]

still using 120 to feed cap bank but don't have much demand now that alot of our industries have left town. had alot of 300 and 600 amp banks. Then about 15 years went to 1200 kvar an thought this is the only way to go. Now we have four 1200 that are out of service with bad parts and we don't need to replace them. **** glad we buy and ship everything over seas!!

[rcdallas]

All our new stuff comes with a 1kva pot hung on the rack. The fourth cutout we mount just inches from the capacitor cutout (same phase)... been installing quite a few of them lately.

We have one that I know of where it's radio controlled to come on and off from this industrial place... that one the control voltage comes from a span away that feeds some guard lights.

I've heard there is a few others in our system where it has CT's on it so that it'll come on and off on it's own that-a-way.

At the coop I was at all it was is open it with a stick and do it quick, no flash guards on the cutouts and I don't recall anyone having a load break tool.

Our district kinda frowns upon us using the old press wrench, MD6 tool (whatever), they like us using gator tools for all the crimping... when the battery dies the old wood handles comes out. :)

[Edge]

At least that's what we called it when we had to work on em!!

Is anybody still hooking up Cap banks the old way?

As in hanging the bank, and then running a span (or more) of 120V secondary for control voltage for it.........That's the way we did for umpteen years........

Most of new Cap banks I'm seeing that are being put up, all have 4 fused switches and a small 3/4KVA (.75KVA) pot built right on the rack with the caps.....seems like it would be less work, but might be confusing to some of the apes coming up, if they don't pay attention.........

I guess everything is changing too, seeing more and more stuff done now that we never used to do............

Like having a UG Dip on a pot pole, with 2 switches on the same pole.........

Like pulling a single phase lateral off of a pot pole, and hanging the fuse switch for the lateral on the same pole, by the pot switch, we used to do it, but we put the lateral switch on the first pole off the take-off.....to avoid confusion, and keep somebody from opening the wrong switch and getting hurt.........gotta keep your head screwed on...all the time!!!

Guess I'm just thinking about random stuff.........shoulder is acting up, hurting like a *****, and the pills haven't kicked in and I can't sleep!!!

See what you young hands have got to look forward to after hookin for 35-40 years.......and you're wore out and broke down!!!!!:D

I'm picking up what your puttin down Tman... Weathers been humid as **** here in VA last 4-5 days and everything fuggin hurts... the caps you describe sound like the old joslens we used to hang at Dominion... they switched to the all in one kinda rack ... hell 15 years ago or better? but still a pile of that old **** out there I reckon...

for what it's worth

Edge

[wtdoor67]

We removed one once. I don't remember why. System was 3 phase 12470 Wye. The capacitor was one of those phase to phase types. 3 lugs and a phase on each lug. Fixed bank. They used those load break angel wing cutouts. Rose was acting foreman and we had a trucky. 3 man crew. I climbed up, opened the cutouts and then donned me old rubbers and handlined it down. They took it off the hand line and set it up in the bed of the linetruck. The trucky climbed up in the back of the truck to move the cap a little further forward and tie it with a piece of rope so it wouldn't fall over.

He was barehanded. Suddenly there was a blood curdling scream. The exclamation, GOD**** was spoken.

I had carefully used rubbers and you know you really gotta be careful with charged capacitors. I think he thought I did it on purpose, but you know me better than that.

[thrasher]

At both the Coop I am at and the one I used to work standing rule is if the capacitor isn't in a rack on the pole the bushings are shorted with a piece of 6 sol copper. Edge may be able to tell us if it's true, but the story in Virginia was about 1986-88 Dominion sent a warehouse man to the hospital. The story we heard was the storage yard was directly under a 230KV line and a 200kvar cap that was not externally grounded built up a charge and when the warehouse man grabbed the bushings to move it he got zapped. Only reason he lived was another man was with him and started CPR. Before you guys say there is an internal shorting resistor that's supposed to prevent this scenario Dominion took the cap in question apart and found the resistor open. Not worth the chance to depend on something you can't see, we always external short them when not in service.

[Special ED]

Not worth the chance to depend on something you can't see, we always external short them when not in service.

Exactly.. I dont trust the resistors.. Hell most the linemen round this town dont even know they exsist but I guess its for the better otherwise they would put trust in em and get hurt..

Seeing is believing.. If I cant see it for myself well I simply dont believe it.. Same with OCRs.. I pull the leads to get my "visual" opening before testing and grounding cause in all honesty if its made by man it along with everything else has some sort of chance to fail kinda like the open resister you mentioned Thrasher..

[Trbl639]

Yessir..gotten a 'wake up call' a time or two....caps sitting in the dock close to 115kv line......ones that weren't shorted!!

Was working the bomb squad one spring with and old relay hand.working on a time/Temp bank...........I had replaced a couple of caps in the rack...buttoned the jumpers up and closed the switches from the air...was racking the bucket when 'Batman' asked if I was clear and ready...........told him to give me another minute or two, and he was getting an 8 ft switch stick out, to close the toggle switch in the controls to close the oil switches...........asked him what was up, his reply................"gives me an 8 ft head start!!"

From then on, it was called the 'Batman Method' !!!!! A time or 2, been glad he taught me that trick!!!!

Another time, I had to go out and drop a couple of fixed banks offline........take em off in the fall, but em back on in the spring.......anyway, was working by myself, as usual...had my load break, which I had checked/tested before I opened the first bank...and a 16ft stick on the load break.........got the first bank pulled off, got to the 2nd one,opened the first switch ok, and when I opened the second one, all hell broke loose.........the **** loadbreak went south on me.........even on the end of that 16ft stick, talk about a fatboy trying to dig a hole in the bottom of the bucket!!!!!!

A week later, got a call, right a quitting time, from the boss to take another fixed bank of, this one about a 1/4 mile from the house, and that close to quitting time, I told the boss I'd go ahead and get it, and call it a day , he said I could either do it today, or wait till tomorrow..........decided i'd do it today...........got it pulled off, and hung the fuse barrels on the rack, and started to move the bucket, and nothing.........truck was dead....anyway, I'm right in front of McDonald's and Walmart, and all kinds of people I knew driving by and I'm trying to flag em down..we didn't have handheld radios then.......everybody just waves and keeps on going..........finally an old black guy driving a dumptruck full of smelly chicken crap stops, about 100 feet away and gets out........I get him to try to start the truck, but no luck, it'll turn over, but that's it.....ask him if he knows how to use a radio, and............

tell him to call 7904, and tell him we got a man stuck in the air at mcDonalds, he's not hurt, but needs help..........

7904 finally answers.... and the guy tells him I'm stuck in the air and can't get down........

7904.........is he hurt??

Black guy.........naw Sir, but he sho wanna come down!!!!!

Fuel pump went out on the truck....bossman **** near burnt the starter up keeping turning it over so the pump would pump enough oil to get me down!!!!!

[wtdoor67]

When I first did any cap stuff they still used the kind that would noticably bulge when they went bad. Wasn't too hard to see which one was bad. Then they started getting a type that didn't bulge. Just fuse em and wait.

Eventually tho they came up with a meter. Just open the bank, short em out, test each one with the meter, separate the bad ones and put em back in service.

Had an old goofy foreman once who would turn off his hearing aids before you closed in.

One place used load break cutouts on the fixed banks. They worked alright. Last place used an oil switch in series with the cutout. Very nice.

I remember a contract hand once who was about to close in a cap. He said to me. Watch me scare these guys. He was gonna just tease in slowly and make a big arc etc. Tickled me cause I think it wound up scaring him more than the ground hands.

Yeah all of em new come with the little shunt wire across the terminals. Wouldn't want a warehouse hand working primary alone in the yard.

[johnbellamy]

I have in the territory I cover, alot of fixed banks, non load break cut-outs, so I gotta use a load buster, the fuses blow on one phase quite often, I have to open the whole bank, call for a second man, by the time he gets there it has been over the min 5 minutes you have to wait before testing, we clear the high side, then snap em of with a ground, at that point the gloves go on, we isolate and test, we have voltmeters with a setting for microferads, look at the chart, depending on the size of the cap. if it is within range, we put it back together and close it in. Two man work minimum.
If it is bad a crew will replace the bad cap. at later date, they do not keep all sizes on hand if any in stock, they have to order them.

We put up a automatic bank the other day, a little more involved, the controller has to have a secondary voltage to operate, this is where it got different, we used a primary insulater that was also a PT. than had to run the LV control wire to the PT then attach across the arm and down the pole to the controller, Me an th the other JL in the air didn't know how that final connection was gonna work out, being no one else had been the g. pig before, asked the techhead there, he was just reading the instructions, said he didn't know either, anyway it worked.

Banks should always be shunted, in transit, storage, until they are put in service, Depending on where you work, some have a fouth cutout tied to the system neut.

Going back to that other thread, purchasing contracts and such, we had to build some fixed banks and put them on line because the utility was getting fined for not using enough Vars., so that was there solution to getting fined.

[Edge]

fuggin trick of the trade I reckon... you gotta pull the barrel on some load and ain't got a buster grab the link at the bottom of the barrel with the hook side of your switch stick and break the fuse... the load will fizzle in the barrel... just hope the cut out aint a gd abchance...

and yeah Thrasher I remember hereing that story a few times... was before I started working at dominion though....

for what it's worth...

Edge

[Trbl639]

fuggin trick of the trade I reckon... you gotta pull the barrel on some load and ain't got a buster grab the link at the bottom of the barrel with the hook side of your switch stick and break the fuse... the load will fizzle in the barrel... just hope the cut out aint a gd abchance...

and yeah Thrasher I remember hereing that story a few times... was before I started working at dominion though....

for what it's worth...

Edge

Sometimes, but not always!! had a 3 man crew, ape and 2 jl...one of the jl's was temp Sr man that day..they were gonna wreck out an old fixed bank..........no bucket, no buster.........one of the switches had the bottom flipper to break the fuse on it, so they decided, 1 jl climb the pole, take some hot cutters and cut the fuse tail and they'd use the slimjim to break the fuse on the other, then just pull the last switch open......this was a 1200Kvar bank....from what I heard that afternoon, when they pulled their stunt...........they had a nice fire and the 3rd switch was burnt up, by the time the fire went out, and the jl on the pole filled his drawers up and then almost killed the temp sr man and the ape quit running 2 spans down the line!!!

Wasn't there, just heard the story.either way, I still don't like working the Bomb squad!!:D

[Edge]

yeah prolly happened when they made the cut... it ain't a recommened practice regardless...I was talking aboutbout pulline the conductor part of the fuse hard enuff that the fuse...the little thread of silver... broke...

wouln't be my first option for sure... some of that old school **** I reckon....

thanks for the check...

Bill

[Trbl639]

yeah prolly happened when they made the cut... it ain't a recommened practice regardless...I was talking aboutbout pulline the conductor part of the fuse hard enuff that the fuse...the little thread of silver... broke...

wouln't be my first option for sure... some of that old school **** I reckon....

thanks for the check...

Bill

I wouldn't recommend doing it either...but I knew what you was talking about!
bill

[johnbellamy]

fuggin trick of the trade I reckon... you gotta pull the barrel on some load and ain't got a buster grab the link at the bottom of the barrel with the hook side of your switch stick and break the fuse... the load will fizzle in the barrel... just hope the cut out aint a gd abchance...

and yeah Thrasher I remember hereing that story a few times... was before I started working at dominion though....

for what it's worth...

Edge

Not on a cap bank, pickin up a 50T on storm, V-Phase, cut out was bad, closed it but the door wouln't stay closed, it was winter, lot of cold load on her, I held the door and the other JL tried breakin like ya said, couldn't get to bust. so I opened her up, big arch but she broke, I was thinkin the same thing you were, extinguish it in the barrel, but the guy cuttin it in that other scenerio, still gonna draw the arch, and burn up the cutters.

Sometimes guys think them selves into a world of hurt.

[Edge]

yeah I wouldn't try that **** on a T fuse... those buggers are made a little tougher... well really made to make the breaker work harder... lemme guess ab chance cut out?

nice read Johnny...

Bill

[johnbellamy]

yeah I wouldn't try that **** on a T fuse... those buggers are made a little tougher... well really made to make the breaker work harder... lemme guess ab chance cut out?

nice read Johnny...

Bill

Sir, just one of those **** moments, this is all I need, it was V-phase like I said, 8' arm, neut low so luckly nothin was real close for it to jump over to.

There are some I guess they considered a load break cut-out, they have a little arm stickin out the bottom, supposed to be able to pull on it, and it breaks the fuse, but when you are talkin anythin over a 25t, they are pretty stout. But the barrels is supposed to extinguish the arch.

I always loved the old grasshopper type when they would use them on taps, the triple links will break sometimes, but the bigger ones, you can tweak the springs doin it. It is always fun pickin up load with those suckers to, seems like ya weaken them drawin that arch when you are pickin **** up.

Jinxed myself, had a dead owl on a 277/480 bank yeaterday, drove by a cap bank, one fuse blown. ****in with those things all the time.

[Special ED]

If ya draw a fire yankin open a switch pass the end of your stick through the arc and it will put it out. But loadbusters do work alot better.. :D

[wtdoor67]

Very nice at night picking up a load. Gotta look at them to pick up the load. Good flash on your dilated eyes.

First time I saw a tripalink cutout brand new. PP & L had em. Thought they were obsolete. Naw brand new. 50 Amp cutout. If we didn't have a heavy enough fuse just add another to the other side.

Area engineer fused #4 ACSR with a 140 amp T fuse. Only wire size and fuse I can remember.

Old time porcelain cutouts. Didn't have any kind of apparatus to take em down or hang em . Had to climb the pole, refuse it and hang it by hand. Then back off and close it with a stick. Real handy. Yeah I wore my rubbers.

[Special ED]

.

Old time porcelain cutouts. Didn't have any kind of apparatus to take em down or hang em . Had to climb the pole, refuse it and hang it by hand. Then back off and close it with a stick. Real handy. Yeah I wore my rubbers.

You talkin bout the old clam shell cutouts? Brown porcelain with the composite doors that hold the fuse inside? Whats fun is opening one and the ring break while your droppin a load so you dont quite break the arc.. lol

Another cut out I hate is the hammer head cutouts.. The ring is kinda oblong and when you pull on it, it raises the latch that holds the door in place. Sometimes when pickin up load you slam em home only to hit the ring the wrong way and it unlatches the door and falls open.. Pretty green or blue arcs usually follow.. :D

[thrasher]

Something Special Ed said in an earlier post reminded me of another danger. I worked around 3000 kvar banks in several stations at one time. These were racks with 5 200 kvar caps per phase each cap was link-fused and there were three oil switches (McGraw Edison type NR) to open and close the bank as needed; in series with the oil switches were non load break station class fuses to provide a visual and to protect against a bus fault on the cap bank. We had a bank that we needed to kill and work on. Per our then standard procedure we remotely opened the oil switches waited 5 minutes then proceeded to open the station class fuses. The first two were no problem. When the third fuse was pulled all hell broke loose, a huge load arc formed which immediately rose into a piece of cross steel went dead short to ground and blew a high side fuse. Then we had to drop all load and open the other high side fuses. Investigation after the fact showed the NR switch on that phase had contacts that were welded closed, and the linkage to the handle broke when the solenoid hit it. So we had an oil switch with the handle showing OPEN that was ACTUALLY welded CLOSED. After that experience we added on more step to our procedure and slapped a clamp-on ammeter on the leads from each oil switch before we opened the station fuses. In summary never trust what you can't see until you test it.