Show this to your kids so they will know better than to mess with downed power lines.
http://www.wimp.com/powerlines/
Show this to your kids so they will know better than to mess with downed power lines.
http://www.wimp.com/powerlines/
Hey, that's pretty cool.
When I was a freshman in college I went with some guys who grounded a large set of power lines, by driving a metal stake into the ground with a wire attached and throwing the wire over the line, it was very spectacular and knocked out the power in the parking lot near us. Also started some small fires in the brush under the lines. Was it stupid? Yes. Did I stand anywhere near it? No freaking way. But it was possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen. I cant find any videos of similar things but basically the wire explodes all the way to the ground, and the wire ceases to exist.
My backyard neighbor's trees do that when we get an ice storm.
Its pretty cool.
...and there goes another hour of my life gone on wimp's random video section. 
Anti-stance wrote: Its pretty cool. ...and there goes another hour of my life gone on wimp's random video section.
No kidding! I love that site!
That IS one of my favorite bored time sites. Pretty sweet video.
The classic arc video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aCbyx0A_ws Search on Youtube for 'arc flash', there are a bunch more.
Wires fell onto guard rail cables in front of my friend's house and it burned up a bunch of wooden posts for a couple of hundred feet. Some were just left as hollow shells.
Where the cables touched the ground, the sand turned into glass.
There was a guy out here cutting fallen power lines to trade in the metals. I could tell you what he looked like when they found him, but I'm sure you can imagine.
N Sperlo wrote: There was a guy out here cutting fallen power lines to trade in the metals. I could tell you what he looked like when they found him, but I'm sure you can imagine.
I was sent pictures of a guy that was stealing copper from a Tx yard and touched a 44KV bus bar.
I don't ever want to look at something like that again! 
the power lines runs through the the maple tree branches on my street. Any given evening you can look up and see branches arcing on the lines if there is a breeze
When I was doing electrical work a long time ago, we did service work for the local college. The main power line through the campus was underground and carrying 13.5KV. It would fail a couple of times a year due to water in the manholes. The only way to find the short was to re-fuse it with fuses as big a forearm and turn it back on. We would pull all the manhole covers first and look for the fireball to explode out of the ground. The only thing worse than watching for fire balls was being the unlucky person to have throw the switch. Having that 4" diameter by 24" long fuse blow while you were throwing the switch was kind of exciting.
Even more exciting was the time a squirrel got in the switchgear. The entire squirrel was vaporized, except for the tail, along with 4' of 1/2" X 4" solid copper bus bar. Try finding that at 3:00 on a Friday afternoon.
I have worked live line work. I watched a line get dropped.. it left a 10 foot diametre hole in the ground... To this day.. the sounds of electricity arcing make all the hairs on my body stand on end.. it is the one sounds I can't stand
N Sperlo wrote: There was a guy out here cutting fallen power lines to trade in the metals. I could tell you what he looked like when they found him, but I'm sure you can imagine.
I'd assume like a roasted pig that was overdone by a couple of hours...
carguy123 wrote: Pranked Nude dancing
ok... I give.. what did either of those have to do with high tension lines?
mad_machine wrote:carguy123 wrote: Pranked Nude dancingok... I give.. what did either of those have to do with high tension lines?
Nothing. It was more a continuation of Anti-Stance's comment of:
"Its pretty cool.
...and there goes another hour of my life gone on wimp's random video section."
I too got lost afterwards.
Woody wrote: Wires fell onto guard rail cables in front of my friend's house and it burned up a bunch of wooden posts for a couple of hundred feet. Some were just left as hollow shells.Where the cables touched the ground, the sand turned into glass.
We blew our 13.47 kV line out where I work a couple of years ago and thieves had stolen our ground wires on our Tx. A metal fence post that was 25 ft. away was literally glowing orange and all the wooden fence posts nearby were on fire. Fire dept. understandably would not put water on them until we had the utility drop the input lines.
Ugh, unfortunately I get to deal with this all day working in dispatch for a utility. Had a call one time about a live power line that had been down for a few days. Yeah, right. So out goes the troubleshooter and lo and behold it WAS a power line down and 4kv to boot. Wonderful thing was it was a floating delta system and one ground will not take it out so it proceeded to turn the asphalt into glass for about three days.
Be VERY careful if you see wires down because even if that circuit is out there might still be induced voltage on it if that line runs with another for any length of distance. Or worse yet you've got what I mentioned above.
Interesting note about the video the branch stopped burning after the arc because it either tripped the breaker, a fuse or a recloser up the line, the branch still had plenty of burning to go.
When the old man and I were digging in Palatine, IL quite a few years ago, we nailed some serious 3 phase that JULIE forgot to mark. I could feel the current through my skin and I was 4 feet away from the hoe. The ground turned purple! Left a nice weld mark on the bucket.
chknhwk wrote: Ugh, unfortunately I get to deal with this all day working in dispatch for a utility. Had a call one time about a live power line that had been down for a few days. Yeah, right. So out goes the troubleshooter and lo and behold it WAS a power line down and 4kv to boot. Wonderful thing was it was a floating delta system and one ground will not take it out so it proceeded to turn the asphalt into glass for about three days. Be VERY careful if you see wires down because even if that circuit is out there might still be induced voltage on it if that line runs with another for any length of distance. Or worse yet you've got what I mentioned above. Interesting note about the video the branch stopped burning after the arc because it either tripped the breaker, a fuse or a recloser up the line, the branch still had plenty of burning to go.
I was thinking that branch had a ways to go.... my question is.. anybody else think that somebody tossed it up there? Seems convienent to have branch laying across the wires with no trees above AND have a video camera right there
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