A closer look at Padmount Transformers

you see those cables going down the pole which are in behind this steel cable guard going down into concrete ducts which travel underground and into the Transformer guys you're watching Bob's Klein for those of you that are new to the channel my name is Aaron and I've been alignment on the east coast of Canada for almost 19 years now today we're going to be taking a quick look at this thing behind me Padma Transformer now it's called a pad Mount Transformer because it's mounted on a pad instead of on a pole when we have our overhead three-phase line if at any point a new customer builds somewhere within the vicinity this line it's a pretty easy process to make Riser pole just like this that's 12 470 volts face to face 7 200 volts face to ground we simply use an existing Pole such as this one down here or we can set an a pole somewhere as mid span and we build the structure with the switches cutouts and those cables you see those cables going down the pole which are in behind this steel cable guard going down into concrete ducts which travel underground and into the Transformer so the purpose of the Transformer is to bring the voltage down from that 12 000 470 volts to a usable either 120 208 or 347 600 volts which are the most common voltages used in my particular jurisdiction different parts around the world have different voltages different communities and at least we're not going to get into that whole lot one of the things I will mention there's often a lot of talk especially during storms about how come all the power lines aren't buried underground one of the simple reasons is this line that's behind me if a customer builds off to it it's easy to add Roger pole a Transformer whatever we need to do it's easy to add that to the system to feed the customer whereas if this entire system was underground buried let's say underneath the grass behind me the customer builds a new shop along here you can't simply dig up the ground and tap into those cables while they're energized those high voltage cables you would have to isolate them ground them dig up set a new pad they'd have to be run up into the pad spliced anyways a whole lot of work and it can't be done normally can't be done while energized all right so let's take a look inside nobody is to open this thing but a certified Lyman somebody that is not only certified but also authorized to do so of course so let's flip the camera around right now what you're seeing is the secondary side of the Transformer that's where the cables are coming out this is the low voltage side we'll open up this other door it's locked right now so just give me one second all right so we got the other side opened up typically we we open every single one of our pad mounted Transformers at least once a year just to inspect the equipment make sure that there's no leaks there's a temperature gate right up here you can see that the temperature is at about 25 degrees Celsius and it peaked up around 50. and there's another gauge outside it with you all level these guys right up here those are the fuses I'm definitely gonna have to make a video one of these days on how to remove those fuses and refuse them they're quite a bit different than a cutout one thing I will mention quick if you do remove those fuses there's a lot of pressure inside the uh the oil tank in these Transformers these Transformers most Transformers or most of the Transformers on the power line system I should say are oil field there certainly are dry types a lot of our Transformers are oil filled if you go to pop that fuse out you might have hot oil squirt back at you so the first thing you're going to want to do is during the air pressure that's what this guy is up here pressure release valve grab your hot stick clip onto that drain the oil pressure first thing you do [Music] [Music] foreign this is a feed through type Transformer so what a feed through Transformer is we can actually run underground primary wires off this Transformer Carry On To The Next One and the voltage won't change in that process these wires coming off that pole that go underground that's these guys right here they come out of the ductwork we have our red blue and yellow face or the ABC and they're all identified on the tags and they're plugged into the high side of the Transformer so it is it is a dead front Transformer there's no high voltage exposed wires in these Transformers if we get to work on those elbows we're going to use our rubber gloves and hot sticks even though it's all Shield grounded cables now what these things are right here are parking stands if for some reason we wanted to remove that cable off the elbow it can be done while they're energized that's what those those two little white marks that identifies that elbow is a load break elbow so even though there's actually load on this elbow right now on that phase we can take a hot stick pop that off there is a little load break Contraption on the The Wire that pokes inside that's going to break the load that could be energized in our stick and you're going to park that on a contraption that fits right into here that can all be done with sticks you can see a little bit of that in one of my videos where we take a look at the volt stick the only other thing we have in here is this guy tap changer that's an offload tap changer so that's going to change the tap position on the windings to slightly increase or decrease the ratio between the high and the low side so let's say we take a volt meter we get 340 volts phase to ground we want to change the top we want to increase it and maybe we'll get 355 volts that can absolutely only be operated when the unit is de-energized that's why it says warning off circuit switch operate only when Transformer is de-energized so that's pretty much it guys it's it's a pretty a pretty basic system high voltage goes in goes for the windings low voltage comes out there's not a whole lot to it obviously do not touch anything with these unless you're certified and authorized to do so actually funny thing I noticed who here has ever seen this guy before that's uh used to be a little cartoon character when uh when I was a kid back in the 80s when we were in school they called him Louis the lightning bug and uh there's little cartoons were Louie lighting the bug would fly around giving safety tips around power lines so the only one more thing maybe I can show you guys on the back you've got these fins and that's just for uh for natural air cooling of the oil the oil field is in this portion of the Transformer and there's oil that circulates in through those fins and gets a natural air Cooling so not all of these green boxes are Transformers some of them are just uh splice boxes they could be switching units as you've seen one video one of them is actually a primary metering tank so the only other thing I do want to mention is see that I was wearing my glove when I opened it I haven't seen it often but there has been cases where you open the door and one of those elbows had was damaged and either was half off or there was an animal Laying across the bushings um we don't have a whole lot of snakes or anything around here but I've seen a lot of that in other in other jurisdictions for us there could be muskrats I even seen the raccoon how he got inside but a lot of a lot of a lot of Road and still get inside these things it's a good practice that if you're arriving to take a look inside this thing and you're anticipating that there is damage to de-energize the entire unit before even opening the doors so that's pretty much it guys we're gonna lock this thing up I gotta head back into town thanks for checking in and we'll see you guys next time

Channel: Bobsdecline - Lineman blogger

Views: 474,216

Keywords: lineman, being a lineman, linejunk, lineman universe, bobs, bob decline, jouneyman lineman, line worker, lineman job, dangerous jobs, bobsdecline, why is my power out, broken power pole, electricty, electricity, power linems, substations, hydro electric, flooding, water and electricity, lineman videos, lineman stories, lineman story, lineman show, poweerlines, a base meter, smart meter, wasps in meter box

Id: nCdJrkvRSSw

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 10 2022