Time for some tree trimming
CK5
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The new shop. Progress.
- Thread starter ktmoutfront
- Start date
He did it while he was up there.
Glad your utility made it right and ran all new triplex. Open neutrals can be pretty dangerous and start electrical fires under the right circumstances.
I know Edison would trim my tree from the lines between the poles, not sure about trimming the drop to house.
They only do it here on the drops when there is an issue. It's the land owners responsibility to keep the branches back. This one broke in the wind and rubbed, so they deal with it then.
There is tons of aluminum in the grid, including the feed lines to most houses. Sometimes the bus bars inside your load center are aluminum. It's just cheaper per amp than copper. The key is having the right coatings on the fittings and paying attention to what the components are rated to be in contact with. Most little outlets say "Cu only" on the back. A lot of your circuit breakers will say you can use either. Of course you never put Al and Cu in direct contact with each other. It's not like Cu doesn't corrode, either. What color is the Statue of Liberty?
Then main reason they went to aluminum on transmission wires is the weight. Now it is a cost thing also. We used to have to do sag calcs on transmission lines, when we had the engineering company, for ground clearance while designing systems. The copper weight was always a no go on the pole loads and sag.
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They make special splices to connect copper and aluminum power lines. Or what's preferred is dead ending the primary on some insulators and running taps across to connect. And they have a special dielectric grease for aluminum service connections to prevent oxidation.
Glad you found your floating neutral.
I'd drive 10' rods into the ground if the 5' ones aren't hitting the water table. Especially if you don't find a ground at the pole with the transformer on it. I know it seems overkill, but I've seen a lot of shit related to grounds and you can't really trust your neighbors or utility grounds anymore because people steal them all the time. Even the aluminum ones.
I forced the municipal electric utility for my house (which is different than the one I work for) to put in grounds because I was tired of being the neighborhood ground.
Transformer has a ground rod. The neutral at the intermediate pole has a ground rod also. Shop ground rods stopped at the granite.
Wow, you have some overachievers and not enough meth addicts!
Finally finished the structure.
Lights and outlets for battery tenders still need to go in.
Lights and outlets for battery tenders still need to go in.
I like the little reverse truss cable setup. Cool idea
I called it an "inverted tension truss".
I was checking that out too. It took me a minute to understand how it was working. Cool idea.
Don't let Wade fool ya, that's his new clothes line for the 3 t shirt days 
To high.Don't let Wade fool ya, that's his new clothes line for the 3 t shirt days
Is high so you don't need to duck while walking under them 
I don't have that issue.
me either
