[AT] now electric pow

Wed Nov 27 19:12:49 PST 2019

The use of aluminum wire is for several purposes. In the early days scrappers would climb the towers while they were being strung and cut the copper wire between two towers at night to sell as scrap. You would think that the scrap yards would know were the wire came from, but they saw their chance to make money. Aluminum doesn’t fetch the same high price per pound.

Second, with aluminum wire, you can string greater distances, which equates to the need to build fewer towers. The aluminum wire is tempered, so it does have good strength properties. The only real problem is corrosion at the termination were brass and copper are used. This is resolved by using special coatings applied to the wire before termination. 

Then there is the cost difference between copper and aluminum.

Our house is too far away from the pole transformer to run a standard line underground, so they had to run a lot larger cable and I had to install a commercial meter box on the house when we were building it so they could bend the cable and terminate it properly. The cable is aluminum. We also have a larger aluminum wire from the meter box to our breaker box because the utility gave us a commercial breaker box to go along with the commercial meter box, even though we’re residential and already had a regular residential sized breaker box to install.

As a side note, one thing about the commercial box is that it is designed so that the meter cannot be pulled under power. There is an internal mechanical switch that you throw to bypass the meter and also unlock it, allowing it to be pulled. You then throw the switch a second time to disconnect the line. When you’re ready to put the meter back in, you reverse the process. This process prevents the meter from seeing surges when being pulled or installed. With this setup, an unethical person could throw the switch every now and then and get free service. I guess they don’t have that issue with commercial businesses, so they didn’t care that they gave us that provision (???). 

There is a problem with this setup however. One day when I was rushing to beat the rain and get some wiring done that required me to make connections in the box, I threw the switch, pulled the meter and forgot to throw the switch again. No problem until I was wrenching on one terminal that was within the length of the wrench and the side of the box. Nice sparks, a weld spot on the wench end, and a small piece of the box edge was burned away. Don’t know why I didn’t wind up sitting on my butt, or worse, since I was standing on bare ground, but I was wide awake after that. I wonder if they noticed a spike at the power plant?

Carl
----- Original Message -----
From: toma at risingnet.net
To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 21:01:32 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [AT] now electric power

Ralph,
I follow Juan Browne's channel too.  I live in the same kind of area south of him near Yosemite.
He mentioned the pge changing to the new safer insulated wires. I think that would do the trick.
We have all aluminum cables here, when one of those hits the ground it arcs. I'll bet the power lines have been starting a lot of our fires for years.  Pge and CalFire must have known.
--
Sent from myMail for Android Wednesday, 27 November 2019, 04:54PM -08:00 from Ralph Goff  alfg at sasktel.net :

>
>On 2019-11-27 5:07 p.m., Cecil Bearden wrote:
>
> I am a believer in Electric power.  Many years ago when we had 
> something like 14 small engines to keep running on various sprayers, 
> elevators, augers, etc. before the advent of ethanol gas.  We still 
> had problems with carburetors and ignition..... I had a source of good 
> used 3 phase motors cheap.  We found 2 old military 3phase diesel 
> generators and kept them running and exercised.  Our engine problems 
> were eliminated.  a 5hp 3ph electric motor will run a 40ft auger much 
> better than those old cast iron 10hp Briggs engines.  A 3hp electric 
> motor would run a hypro sprayer pump great...
> Cecil
>
> Thats fine until the power goes off and all the electrical powered 
> equipment won't start. I can light a fire under my old Wisconsin and 
> have it going. I've had good luck with the old engines although I did 
> have to add a little heat yesterday when I needed to start one.
>
>https://youtu.be/e1Kdf2w6qew
>
>Ralph in Sask.
>
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