Got this in an email tonight, thought some of you might like to see it.

Note the small electrical arc between the chain and the pad lock;

 

Doesn't surprise me at all that it was hot. The power lines around here are 13,700 volts. I am surprised that the fence wasn't melted down.

Good fuses did their job.

 

Hey, hat! Go unlock that gate so we can get in, will ya?

Watch this, guys...

 

Yikes!! Thats something I would have never thought of. Madhat could have easily handed me a set of bolt cutters and said "bet you can't cut through that in under a minute"!

 

I double dog dare you to p## on that fence.

 

They DID? I would have thought they should have blown, killing power to that line instead of making a toaster of the fence!

You first!

 

i dont think there are actual fuses on the line, just one the service to the house. The lines are controlled by breakers inside the substation. Those breakers are controlled by relays that are fed info from CTs(current transformers) that ratio down the current enough for the relay to sense and the relay itself will trip out the breaker. Also there are one shot schemes that if the breaker trips it will automatically reenergize the line in case it was just a tree limb that fell onto the line and it is trying to burn it off

 

Well sorta

Poles have breakers also. But they are designed to keep power running as long as possible. The switches are found on the poles, substations, periodically along transmission lines, all the way back to generation.

What may have been going on is the wire was making a poor contact. Otherwise it would have been a molten mess.

The transformers are Buck/Boost as well. I have 21KV running down my street. I've seen tree limbs fall on them and just burn until they made better contact. Then they will blow up or trip at the pole.

This high voltage stuff is fascinating sometimes. Example, 500KV transmission switches in a substation have dynamite charges in them. This is to blow open the switch and quench the arc. Trust me. . . You don't want to be near one of those when it trips.

I spent 20 years doing power distribution. As a vendor, I started to see the utility engineers taking too many safety corners. I decided it was time to bail at that point.

 

None of you are going to comment on the obvious cooking options here. Throw some hot dogs, steaks, chicken wings or something like that on that fence. Should cook pretty quickly.

 

rent a bad guy or use for immigration.......

nice. always liked seeing the blades of grass turned into glass after a secondary line down in the field.....

 

Naaa. Just ask a cop to touch it. They'll touch, (or taste!) anything! We always sent them into suspected hazmat zones, if they came back it was safe for us to enter! 'Blue Canaries' we called 'em!

 

This is proof why you should always touch the gate with the back side of your tongue before opening it

 

Strange but good idea!

 

Send the crew to my house. I got an electrical thing they can fix.

 

I concur.
The underneath of your tongue is much better at discerning voltages than the top.