Thanks. The acetylene bottle is shorter, no matter the diameter. Where it is, and as it is, is fine. The l - o - n - g 02 bottle could be put horizontally under the work table to reduce the height, improves looks dramatically, and take away the top heaviness of it. There is a substantial bottom mount, but only a band and a 1/4" x 20 bolt holding the top to the welder. I'm sure it would fail in a collision.
Steve
The GTE Splicer trucks and vans all carried a large (200CF range) Nitrogen cylinder horizontally for air tools and cable pressurization, you would chain the bottle to the pole if you needed to leave it in the field. (And I suppose they still do since the work remains the same, though the racks may have been upgraded.)
They had a not-so-special slide-out rack in the back of vans or in a side compartment of the larger trucks (some carried two) with simple hoops to restrain the bottle during transport, and a chain to keep it from sliding out the open end of the rack. That and the steel valve cap being on the cylinder during transport was considered to be 'secure storage'.
You might want to contact the auction house where they sell off the surplus trucks, and arrange to be there on auction days - many buyers of the used trucks would consider it a bonus to sell off the interior fittings that will be useless to them, since they'll be using the truck for Landscape Maintenance. Bring cash and a socket set.
Acetylene cylinders MUST be used in the vertical position (*), and should be transported the same way so someone doesn't forget and send a big slug of acetone through the regulator and piping.
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Bruce,
I often see bottles strapped to poles after some work has been done on a splice (I assume). What is the nitrogen used for after they are complete? Sometimes I have seen the bottles left for over a week.
Shawn
Depends - sometimes you are doing work in the middle of a cable run, and they suspect a leak in an underground cable at the far end of the run - and if there's a manhole at the other end that is full of water where the leak might be, when the air pressure goes away the cable could end up full of water...
It's bad enough on the newer plastic insulated cable because it can be dried out, but with older paper insulated cables you get any free water inside and any cable that got damp is trash - and that little leak quickly becomes a major 1200 to 4200-customer outage disaster...
They'll put air on at the far end, past where you opened the cable to work. That way the leak you cause with the splice case open doesn't depressurize all the cable past you - now it's feeding from the bottle back toward you and leaking from both ends at the case you've opened. Meaning it still has the full 10 PSI on the cable toward the CO and the far end, except for about 1 case either way and
1/8 mile that will see a reduction.If the bottle is only left there a few days, it's because they're working on that run. If it's there semi-permanently, the pressure man (person...) in your area is either overworked or lazy, and there's a persistent leak he hasn't found and fixed.
They feed air on all cables from the switchroom, with a compressor and air dryer, and they have pressure transducers at the far ends to monitor the pressure - you have to call in and tell the office you are working on that cable, or they'll get an alarm and send the pressure man out to find the trouble.
If you are in a rural area with really long cables, they run more bottles just because of pressure drop and latency several miles form the switchroom. If there is a need for one, they will stick a pedestal mounted electric compressor and air dryer in the field, and feed several cables from the far end.
Oh, and the power company also has some air-core cables deployed, but they usually do theirs differently so you can tell. The L.A. DWP hangs their Nitrogen bottles off the pole in a chain sling about 10 feet up, keeps the kiddies from playing with them.
Their bottles are often there semi-permanently, for example to pressurize a little chunk of air-core underground cable where the 10KV to 35KV feeder line changes from aerial to go under the freeway, then back to aerial on the other side. If that cable (or cables plural) isn't being fed air from a distribution station compressor, they need a bottle on it. Wet power cables go BOOOOM!!
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I've noticed a few places that seem to have big enough issues to take three or four normal high pressure nitrogen cylinders and one or two where they went up to the big cryo cylinders for more capacity.
s: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Man, it's been so long since I've seen one of those setups! They went through our area when I was in grade school and replaced all the old lead-sheathed pulp cables with silicone grease-filled ones. Buried all the overhead long-distance cables, too, I briefly worked for a contractor doing that. They used to blow dry nitrogen through those old cables to dry them out, the wire separators were strands of paper pulp. Wet cables were noisy. If there were a LOT of leaks, the bottles would stay hooked up more or less semi-permanently. I guess they considered it cheaper than replacing that segment of cable. Probably these days they won't replace ANY cable if they don't have to, for one thing the phone companies don't have the tech force anymore.
Stan
5+ years ago, Bell replaced the local back yard feeder cable on the other side of my street because the old one had too many repairs. When they hooked it in to the transverse feeder which is in an easement along my side lot line they found four bad pairs and had a look in my yard where they found my topsoil pile at about the right distance back along the line. The supervisor apparently didn't believe me that this was only storage and not fresh digging and arranged all the locates etc. to investigate. At my suggestion, he brought in a backhoe to my yard, rather than a banjo crew since I had no problem with access. I also provided the crew with washroom facilities, drinking water and picnic table. After they cut off my phone and Internet access, TV cable to the subdivision, their own 400 pair cable, and were getting close to the main HV feeders, he did some more research an discovered that this fault was in an old splice and had been recorded some twenty years previously, and even though I suggested that they might just as well fix it while the splicing crew was already working on site, he declined. I guess it makes a big difference when there is no chance of recovering costs from the landowner. Gerry :-)} London, Canada
A lot of new fiber is still dark, waiting to replace that bad lead cable. They ran two different colors of conduit for the RR backbone. They told me one was for future use for long distance phone service.
When a line is put under the ground, they often put in blocks that contain 4 built in tubes. Into these they pull new cables and have extras.
Some planning and some Rats, we didn't see that one!
Martin
Mart> "Bruce L. Bergman" wrote:
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The Telcos (and the CableCos) are all pushing large count fiber- optic cables into the field, so every house can have it's own dedicated fiber for high-speed data and video and etc. - But You DO NOT Necessarily Want This!!!
It's a great idea for the Telco, will provide you with advanced services and will save them tons of money over the long run - but they want to serve you with that fiber only, and that is a VERY BAD IDEA. They will present you with an agreement to install the fiber, and buried in the fine print is that they get to remove all copper pairs and serve you over the fiber only.
You must insist on one Plain Old Telephone Service line coming in to your house on a metallic pair straight from the switchroom - write it into the agreement, and ask them to send it to Legal... If for no other reason than when the power fails that POTS line will still work, with the 99.999% up-time reliability you've come to expect.
This is the line you put your burglar & fire alarm dialer on. This is the line your boss can call you or you can call them at 2 AM, with a reasonable chance that it will work.
The fiber field adapter box may well have a rechargeable backup battery in it to keep minimal services running (one line dial-tone for an hour or two) - but in 5 years when that battery goes bad, how long do you think it'll take to get someone out to replace it? And how many homeowners would even think to ask?
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They aren't giving that option around here. It might be a mile of copper, but everything is going fiber because of all the lightning damage problems in Florida. You have two choices, old copper wth lots of noise and outages, or new fiber. When enough people complain in an area, everyone is switched over. The other option is no landline.
The no land line option is becoming very viable not that some cell carriers are offering flat rate US plans, i.e. no minutes, no long distance and no extra charges to and US number, land, cell or other.
As for the backup power for a fiber home terminal unit, any internal battery it may have should only be a secondary backup. You need to have your own "real" UPS covering that unit as well as your computer(s), routers, aquarium, etc. all backed by a generator with an adequate fuel supply.
My dad and step mom had a propane powered backup system installed last year. They spent $20,000 by the time the work was done, and the tank was filled. SO, my lights go out, and I hear their generator running, while I'm busy shutting things down to conserve the UPS batteries.
Not knowing the details I can't comment on why it cost $20k, but it can certainly be done in most cases for a lot less, like around $5 max. That won't get you a unit big enough to run every single thing in the house typically, but if you select your emergency circuits well it will be close enough for any normal outage.
That was whole house. They are in their late '70s, and both have health problems so they need the central air or heat. They had a smaller setup but it was too much work to keep it up and running, like going outside during a hurricane to refill the gas tank.
Wow, thanks Bruce. I had no idea there was so much going on with those cables.
Shawn
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