are these substations

[tr87]

are the buildings in the picture substations?, how danerous actually are these places. as i saw a group of kids poking sticks through one, could you get killed if you stuck something in 1 of the grills on them.

 

[WPD Lad]

You'd certainly get a belt off the LV frame! Live exposed busbars and tx links

 

[Knobhead]

Like it! Not seen one of those for years.
View attachment 10945
This is one I used to work on.

 

[Mark_Burgess]

Like it! Not seen one of those for years.
View attachment 10945
This is one I used to work on.

Thats ridiculous, where are you supposed to lean against when thinking or drinking?

 

[WPD Lad]

Like it! Not seen one of those for years.
View attachment 10945
This is one I used to work on.

Jesus, that's got to be worked on dead, surely!

We've got open busbar link boxes on our network and they're all worked on dead!

 

[Knobhead]

We worked on it live. It’s 550V just to add to the fun.

How come there’s no live working on link boxes now? OK their a bit dodgy but if you were quick fitting or removing links the fireworks weren’t to bad. With a four-way box there must be one hell of a lot of disruption.

 

[WPD Lad]

We worked on it live. It’s 550V just to add to the fun.

How come there’s no live working on link boxes now? OK their a bit dodgy but if you were quick fitting or removing links the fireworks weren’t to bad. With a four-way box there must be one hell of a lot of disruption.

It's just the open busbar "calendar" boxes that we have in Birmingham that are made dead, all other link boxes are linked in live. The "calendar" boxes have concentric busbars that are only a couple of cms apart, the insulators are usually in a bad way and the links are big enough to go across the phases.

Normal link boxes with the standard links are fine for normal operation, I'll see if I can dig up a pic of our "calendar" box!

 

[Knobhead]

You’ve just reminded me of the time I spent at EMEB’s Woolaton training centre. I was doing MV jointing, there was another group doing LV. One guy I will never forget, you could see the concentration on his face as he poured the metal over the cores. They were live, you could guarantee his foot would slip back off the mat on to the metal decking. 230V up the stream of metal and through him was funny to watch. The only sympathy he got was you need a f**king light bulb on yer ed!
View attachment 10956
The LV mob were given the instructions for a 4 way box just before we all packed up for the day, they were told to read them before the morning as they would have to crack on to get it finished in a day.
They had to break in to a PILC SWA for two legs of the box and connect a PVC concentric and a PVC SWA that was live and potted. These were the old style boxes were you had sixteen ½“ studs to sweat the cores to with weakbacks.

They did crack on quite well until it got the live cable, there was a lot of swearing and cursing but they all got it finished. Then there was a shout from one of the lads, he’d finally read the last page of the instructions.

UNDER NO CERCUMSTANCES IS ANY PART OF THIS PROCEDURE TO BE CARIED OUT LIVE!

(It should have been the first page).

 

[Knobhead]

Just to give you another laugh. A hot sunny day and even though I was in just shorts and tee shirt I was sweating like a pig. My metal framed glasses were slipping down my nose and in danger of falling in the link box, my mate was pushing my glasses back with an insulated screw driver.

 

[WPD Lad]

Proper jointing. It's all snap on connectors and resin these days, there's no art to it anymore! You can joint in a 4 way link box in no time!

Did you ever see consac cable? Solid alu sheathed neutral earth, it's paid many an engineers mortgages with neutral faults. Smallest nick in the PVC and it puff balls!

 

[Knobhead]

Never worked on CONSAC but I’ve seen it been breach jointed. What a pain in the arse. 3 streets in Nottingham lost the neutral due to a small nick in the outer serving and as you say the sheath puff balling. Cost EMEB a fortune for fried televisions, VCR’s etc. It was the gas board that damaged the cable!

 

[Guest111]

You know that sign they put up on subs? "Keep Out, Danger Of Death"
They don't put that on them just for a giggle you know

I had one of those on my back gate when we had some junkies living a couple of doors away,one nearly found out what it meant one night when i caught him trying to break in luckily for him somebody stopped me.

 

[Knobhead]

Some pictures to give others an idea of what we were rambling about. You may have seen them usually at junctions in the pavement.
View attachment 11022View attachment 11023View attachment 11024

 

[DPG]

Thanks for that Tony. Good thread this. Don't think I'd fancy doing the job though! Daz

 

[Knobhead]

You don’t have to be mad, but it helps. I worked on private networks not for a DNO.
View attachment 11026
To be honest I’m glad I’m out of the game now.

 

[electron1]

Some pictures to give others an idea of what we were rambling about. You may have seen them usually at junctions in the pavement.
View attachment 11022View attachment 11023View attachment 11024

Brings back memories for me when as a Student Apprentice on the then area board NWEB in Blackburn.