Energy efficient related things :: energy diversion / Arc Flash

cgetty
Posts: 137 Registered: 2013-12-25	This incident is about some people who wanted to steal some wire but things went South. Some people decided they wanted to steal some copper wire. So they went to this cement factory. They found some electrical boxes with what they thought was big fat copper wire inside for were they surprised. This is one scenario as to how these events may have occurred. At 2:30 AM the cable is shorted. The customers relay operates & clears the fault. About 7:30 AM the customer arrives at work and says "Whats up? No power ? Hey look our relay operated and is locked out, lets close it back in". Utility primary fuse blows. The utility's relay at the substation saw both events & recorded them. The current was not enough to operate the utility's relay at the substation. From what I recall because it really didn't involve the utility because this box was located on the property of the plant. This is primary metering. The 12KV feed went into the customer's premises. The customer plant took the 12KV feed. They had their own 12KV relay which is what they operated when they showed up and had no power. It did blow a utility fuse the area where the utility hands it off to the customer as a result of their closing in their relay on a fault. The substation recorded the event when the person cut into the cable and when the customer closed back in his relay in blew the fuse. But it didn't trip the circuit at the substation. This is really what got them in trouble. If you notice the first conductor under the Insulation is called a concentric neutral. So as they cut down on the cable eventually they shorted the neutral which are the small thin wires wrapped around the outer side of the cable they came in contact with the center of the cable which looks like maybe number two aluminum wire something like that. As I was taking these pictures it seemed like the police were making a police report I heard something to the effect that there were two men and a woman and there was nobody there when the police showed up and what happened to these poor folks I don't know.
Last edited by: cgetty on Aug 10, 2025 5:25:42 am Profile

Posted: Aug 10, 2025 5:11:52 am

cgetty
Posts: 137 Registered: 2013-12-25	This video is about a man who is inspecting an electric panel with no protective safety equipment no gloves no glasses wrong clothes is about to experience a flash that no doubt damaged him if not killed him. These kind of videos should just drive home the need to be careful electricity is dangerous. Why workmanship and standards are important I don't mean to be critical of people and their methods in different parts of the world people have different standards, different resources at their disposal and different concepts of what is adequate. So beyond the video there's not much to say except when it comes to electricity be careful. Reflect on it I'm 67 years old the day that I'm writing this post. I work for many years for an electric utility as a meter test technician. I'm retired and very grateful that things went as well as it did in my case. During my career I probably had many close calls some that I was not even aware of. One issue in a pump house on a 480 Volt system and I was by myself and I came to a close call but it worked out well on that occasion. Following video is from Florida power and light. About two meter technicians in a meter room on the 27th floor of some building. In this video what is discussed is the importance of the protective equipment in clothing that we have which does not really hold up well against arc flashing. These two people it appears survived but were injured pretty severely. When these kind of videos are made people are very cautious about placing blame or talking about the reason for the situation and in this video they don't talk about any of that which I understand. From what I gather one of the technicians was checking something with his wiggy and there was a failure and an arc started. I don't know if the fault was in the test equipment, I don't know exactly what the voltage was that he was measuring i'm guessing it was like 120 / 208 or 277 / 480. I relate to this situation because of the city of Glendale when I was there as a test technician one of our Technicians was involved in a similar accident in a basement at City Hall (Steamer) testing a meter things went south and he was severely injured he made it through OK and he didn't have any amputations or anything but I'm telling you! WOW!! I think if I would have known about these issues before I got a job as a meter test technician you know the money was good but the dangers are real. I don't know that I would have went into this line of work and to get into engineering and where or a pocket protector is my only protective equipment that I need. If you wanna watch the video which I recommend visit this link on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TS7Zp4SGsM Solid state meter hacking You know in the old days if you wanted to hack a meter you'd shoot the glass with a BB gun from a distance and then put a paper clip through the hole the glass, that could work for a long time if you don't get greedy. Or you've forgotten and left the paper clip in the glass when the meter reader read the meter. There are many other ways to do it too. People shouldn't practice current diversion. When people speak about hacking that could just be a work around for something that doesn't work not necessarily doing something wrong. But when meters became solid state no more gears well that opened up a whole new ball game. Now the utility has many different ways that they can charge you for electricity. But with that complexity there's a tradeoff. Old mechanical meters if you didn't bother and could last you 50 years. I've retired meters from the field that are that old and they tested very well. But since meters have become solid state their lifetime in service has been reduced a lot. In addition to this you open up the world of metering to people experience with electronics in general. There wasn't a lot to say about mechanical meters except how they work through the fluxes and the voltage in the current but it was pretty straightforward. But with solid state meters it's a whole new world. Of course for the purposes of security I don't think the people who manufacture meters are really inclined to share the particulars of how they make them and how they work with the general public. And for that reason you're gonna get people like the channel below. People who are very curious about how things work. People that are very intelligent and can figure things out. And ones whose passion drives them to do what they do. I think the channel below is an example of this. It reminds me of the standard used for telephones back in the day GSM/SS7 Once these standards were published many people dove into them and found vulnerabilities which still exist today. So in this way you could say these people are doing a service helping keep things secure that's one perspective. I don't encourage hacking a meters to steal but if vulnerabilities are uncovered. They should be dealt with and this is the game a cat and mouse that we seem to play. The person who is doing this channel below it kinda reminds me of that. And if you wanna understand how these things work this is a channel to watch this guy's onto something.
Last edited by: cgetty on Aug 11, 2025 3:59:22 pm Profile

Posts: 137
Registered:
2013-12-25

This video is about a man who is inspecting an electric panel with no protective safety equipment no gloves no glasses wrong clothes is about to experience a flash that no doubt damaged him if not killed him. These kind of videos should just drive home the need to be careful electricity is dangerous.

Why workmanship and standards are important

I don't mean to be critical of people and their methods in different parts of the world people have different standards, different resources at their disposal and different concepts of what is adequate.

So beyond the video there's not much to say except when it comes to electricity be careful.

Reflect on it

I'm 67 years old the day that I'm writing this post. I work for many years for an electric utility as a meter test technician. I'm retired and very grateful that things went as well as it did in my case. During my career I probably had many close calls some that I was not even aware of. One issue in a pump house on a 480 Volt system and I was by myself and I came to a close call but it worked out well on that occasion.

Following video is from Florida power and light. About two meter technicians in a meter room on the 27th floor of some building. In this video what is discussed is the importance of the protective equipment in clothing that we have which does not really hold up well against arc flashing. These two people it appears survived but were injured pretty severely.

When these kind of videos are made people are very cautious about placing blame or talking about the reason for the situation and in this video they don't talk about any of that which I understand. From what I gather one of the technicians was checking something with his wiggy and there was a failure and an arc started. I don't know if the fault was in the test equipment, I don't know exactly what the voltage was that he was measuring i'm guessing it was like 120 / 208 or 277 / 480.

I relate to this situation because of the city of Glendale when I was there as a test technician one of our Technicians was involved in a similar accident in a basement at City Hall (Steamer) testing a meter things went south and he was severely injured he made it through OK and he didn't have any amputations or anything but I'm telling you! WOW!!

I think if I would have known about these issues before I got a job as a meter test technician you know the money was good but the dangers are real. I don't know that I would have went into this line of work and to get into engineering and where or a pocket protector is my only protective equipment that I need.

If you wanna watch the video which I recommend visit this link on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TS7Zp4SGsM

Solid state meter hacking
You know in the old days if you wanted to hack a meter you'd shoot the glass with a BB gun from a distance and then put a paper clip through the hole the glass, that could work for a long time if you don't get greedy. Or you've forgotten and left the paper clip in the glass when the meter reader read the meter. There are many other ways to do it too. People shouldn't practice current diversion. When people speak about hacking that could just be a work around for something that doesn't work not necessarily doing something wrong.

But when meters became solid state no more gears well that opened up a whole new ball game. Now the utility has many different ways that they can charge you for electricity. But with that complexity there's a tradeoff.

Old mechanical meters if you didn't bother and could last you 50 years. I've retired meters from the field that are that old and they tested very well.

But since meters have become solid state their lifetime in service has been reduced a lot. In addition to this you open up the world of metering to people experience with electronics in general. There wasn't a lot to say about mechanical meters except how they work through the fluxes and the voltage in the current but it was pretty straightforward.

But with solid state meters it's a whole new world. Of course for the purposes of security I don't think the people who manufacture meters are really inclined to share the particulars of how they make them and how they work with the general public. And for that reason you're gonna get people like the channel below. People who are very curious about how things work. People that are very intelligent and can figure things out. And ones whose passion drives them to do what they do. I think the channel below is an example of this.

It reminds me of the standard used for telephones back in the day GSM/SS7 Once these standards were published many people dove into them and found vulnerabilities which still exist today. So in this way you could say these people are doing a service helping keep things secure that's one perspective.

I don't encourage hacking a meters to steal but if vulnerabilities are uncovered. They should be dealt with and this is the game a cat and mouse that we seem to play. The person who is doing this channel below it kinda reminds me of that.

And if you wanna understand how these things work this is a channel to watch this guy's onto something.

Last edited by: cgetty on Aug 11, 2025 3:59:22 pm

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