trouble shooting standard

[linemansmilestones]

I approached Byron to have a t-man forum, and it is great to hear from all you t-men on a number of problems and solutions.

Now I want to work on a project of producing a trouble shooting standard that will be a compliment to our collective experience, and a compliment to this web site.

As a t man we cover transmission, distribution, commercial, residential, agriculture, and more. I have my way of trouble shooting, and you all have your ways which may not match mine. The reality is that we are working with the same natural energy, no matter where we live or work.

I will be posting situations, and the way I would trouble shoot it. I invite other t men to analyze and trouble shoot the situation too, using your experience.

The purpose of the forum is to put your foot print (in writing) on the industry. Many t-men will be leaving the industry (I have left) in the next few years, and their valuable education of trouble shooting will be leaving also. This is not good for future trouble man, since most t man info comes from people who have been the the craft.

So think about what I am proposing and send me your thoughts.

[wtdoor67]

I have worked for companies who did not have the title of troubleman in their classifications. It's all done by servicemen titles in some companies.

I have never known a Journeyman who was not pretty comfortable doing trouble work after a very short while. Just the basic understanding of how a distribution system works is usually all the training most people need.

The most useful thing to learn I found was just knowing where all the subs. were and where the circuits ran. I was never a bonafide serviceman/troubleman, but did work for about 7 or 8 years where you were assigned to trouble ever 4th weekend.

In my experience there is only about 10% of trouble work that requires some real brain work.

[cliff]

I tend to disagree with that 10% figure but I guess it depends on how the system is built. If the dispatchers or load specialist can do their job too. I see many Lineman can make a smooth transition in to that service truck and some just get bored working by themselves.

[linemansmilestones]

perhaps in rural setting t-men's responsibilities are less than in a city with a large population and a lot of commercial and industrial users. underground is a big issue and some sub stations are underground like in San Francisco.
PG&E has a t-man school, but not all t-man attend, and the school is mostly about substations, which are usually on SCADA.

Even in a rural area t-men are the first responders, and carry the responsibility of the company. It usually takes a lot of seniority to become a t-man, but line work does not really prepare you for the level of customer service and contact with the public that t-men face.

Linework did not teach me about how to trouble shoot high low voltage, high bill complaints, part outs in customers panel, intermittent voltage complaints, non pay shut offs, industrial quality voltage controls, circuit outage restoration using the computer as a main tool, outages caused by momentary transmission interruption to the sub station, communication with the system operator (who is being guided by the computer circuit program and customer outage info from the call center) and more.

T-man is the first responder and has to consider his safety, as the first factor, when responding to an outage or emergency. Next he or she has to evaluate the situation and communicate with the switching center, even if it is only a one customer problem.

A t-man's responsibility is not the same in all regions of the country or the world, but we are there to keep the lights on, and a lot of our work is common practice. This is the info I want us to pass on to new t-man. On a crew you have support, and a call out, you are on your own.

[wtdoor67]

Linework did not teach me about how to trouble shoot high low voltage, high bill complaints, part outs in customers panel, intermittent voltage complaints, non pay shut offs, industrial quality voltage controls, circuit outage restoration using the computer as a main tool, outages caused by momentary transmission interruption to the sub station, communication with the system operator (who is being guided by the computer circuit program and customer outage info from the call center) and more. Preceding is quote from linemansmilestones.
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No computers when I did trouble. Most of mine was in an area that had 2400 delta, 2400/4160 wye, 4160 uniground, 7200 grounded delta, 12470 wye, 12470 uniground and 34.5 wye. I believe it took 5 different primary transformers for this system. High bill complaints I believe were given to the meter man. He usually tested the meter etc. I guess. Linework gave me an understanding of capicators, and regulators, LTC's etc. for high voltage or low voltage complaints. Non pay shutoffs were standard. Customer got a letter, then a door knocker was hung, then he was disconnected. Dispatch always knew if a transmission breaker was locked out or had operated. The dispatcher just informed us via phone or radio what the specific problem was.

10% was just a ballpark estimate. In thinking back I believe overhead Kyles caused most of the puzzles. I found Kyles that would hold part of the load but not all of it. Some would feed partially. Open jumpers were just a matter of checking different pots or banks to figure where you had total voltage. Checking all the bus voltage in the sub sometimes gave a clue.

We set RVMeters sometimes. We never went past the meter point, if the voltage was good at the meter point the customer was advised to get an electrician. I usually made an exception on single phase residential although we weren't supposed to.

There's plenty of exceptions I'm sure and in more sophfisticated systems it would be more complicated but understanding how a system worked was my biggest help.

Having all pots etc. on bails and hotclamps made it simple to just climb a pole and move a pot over to another phase to check for voltage. I never got bored on trouble but did on service work. Liked being alone.

[copperlineman]

Let's get at it. Post some situations when your ready.

I love t-work. Did it for many years in a dense metropolitan area of the midwest. My area was made up of 6 townships, and parts of 3 more (township is 36 square miles around here) and had over 200,000 customers. URD, overhead, 4kv, 12kv, 34kv and more. The company has many more areas just like it.

When I was there, we worked very close with the dispatcher, but they don't anymore. Dispatchers don't know much now. It's not their fault, that's the direction the company went.

We were the first responders to all calls. We also did most of the switching for construction crews, because we could get around easier with our smaller trucks and we knew the system much better. One could be a great construction lineman, but once he came into t-shooting, he almost had to start from scratch. It's a much different world operating and troubleshooting a system than it is to build it. No specs in troubleshooting.

[doug]

I Think This Is A Good Idea To Have This Type Of Page.i Myself Was A T-man/
Serviceman For About 10 Yrs.we Worked A 1 Man Truck Unless You Need Help Chg Out A Pot Or Picking Up Wire.line Work Did Prepare You For The T-calls Of Picking Wire ,chg Out Pot,etc.i Worked For A Lg. Coop Where Line Crew And T-man/serv. Pulled Call Outs.but I Learned Most Of My T-shooting From Older
Serv.men And Working Thru Problems By Yourself.i Was Very Lucky To Attend T-shooting School In Hse And At Schools.also A Good Scada-dispatch Dept Is Also A Big Plus!!!!!with The Use Of Amr Metering,scada,etc.iseen That A Lot Of Trbl.calls Were Cause By Improper Training And Short Cut Taken By Crews And Contractors.this Sure Makes You Do Thing Right The First Time Around And I Would Try To Pass These Thing On To Others.a Lot Of Line Work Is Learned By Working With Other And Doing It The Same As They Do And Every Crew Has There Way Of Doing Things.i Tried To Take The Best Of All And Then Do It My Way.
Also There Is A Lot Of Different Tools To Help You Trbl Shoot Such As Beast Of Burden,fault Ind. Amp Meters, Voltage Detectors That Can Make Life A Lot Easier.but This All Has To Come From The Company Buying These Tools.a Lot Of It Is Work And Using The Tools That You Have To The Max!!!!!!
One Thing When You Work By Your Self Safety Is 1st Because You Have Noone To Watch Your Back Unlike On A Crew Were You Watch Each Other.
In My View T-man/servman Is One Of The Best Job At A Electric Company.

[wtdoor67]

A guy told me of this once. He went to a no power at a transformer bank. Things appeared normal with the exception of a pot fuse blown. He replaced the fuse, checked voltage, lingered a moment and left. In about 45 minutes he was called back to the same location. Again, a fuse blown and no indication of what blew it. He determined the pots were adequately sized for the load, fused properly and so he again fused the pot, checked voltage and waited awhile, nothing happened and he left to be called back again after the same period of time.

The only thing he noted was some of the customers were served by an open wire secondary with 2 hot phases on top with the neutral on the bottom. He figured it out this time. What was the problem?

[thrasher]

You didn't say the loads and wire sizes but from the timing I'd guess the secondary was heating up from load and sagging into the neutral.

[loodvig]

You didn't say the loads and wire sizes but from the timing I'd guess the secondary was heating up from load and sagging into the neutral.

That's what I thought of too! I've seen 23kv highlines sag too from the summer load.