Friday's Failure Forum Picture-Mar 30 2007

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ghostbuster

ghostbuster

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Great White North
Where did all the copper go?

Customer called and complained all the electronics blew up during the latest electrical storm.

This customer had approximately 80 remote tower sites. Each site had its own transfer switch and back-up diesel generator power system.
r1.jpg


Most of the electronic equipment, including the transfer switch, at this particular site had been damaged.

Our investigation revealed the copper bonding jumper cables from all the tower guy wires and tower structure to the copper ground systems had been cut off and stolen.
r3.jpg
 
Another Pic

Another Pic

While this may be difficult to see, this site had multiple neutral to ground connections and the resulting net currents. This is a BX cable with a thermal condition at the connection of the BX to the shell of the connector. There is an 11 degree F temperature rise from the back box to the BX connection to the bx connector. The second thermal image you see is reflection.



irreport4_Page_1.jpg
 
ghostbuster said:
Customer called and complained all the electronics blew up during the latest electrical storm.
Click to expand...
Did they ask you to do anything in particular, or do people just call you to complain? :grin:
 
mdshunk said:
Did they ask you to do anything in particular, or do people just call you to complain? :grin:
Click to expand...

This was a key cell site repeater station as well as some other emergency services.The customer was receiving numerous "complaint"calls from his own internal group ,telling him that this part of the network had crashed.They had no idea that they had lost their tower copper grounding system as well as all the electronics at this site.

We were asked to perform the following engineering services:

Engineering site survey and immediate repairs were done.Long term new electrical design stategies and additional security measures were implemented at all sites.:)

Is anyone else losing copper out there??
 
A contractor I do work for pulled in a copper 5 way duct bank (4-500 kcmil) on Friday, on Monday he came in and the conductors were cut off at the top of the conduits on both ends. They are going to have dig up the pad as they can not get a grip on the conductors to pull them out.
 
I usually try to save all the little scraps each day. After several weeks I get a nice little bonus...sometimes a couple hundred bucks, but the length some idiots go to to cash in on a little copper is unbelievable. To risk death for a few dollars is inconceivable to me. It is easier to get a job and make money the old fashioned way, and a lot less risky.
Circumstancially, a company I used to work for had a severe problem: some of the foremen would order much more wire than was necessary for the job and cash in on the surplus. For example, if we had a 3 phase installation of 500MCM at 125' they would purposely order the wire for a 150' run. Imagine the amount of loss on such a job!
 
bstoin said:
I usually try to save all the little scraps each day. After several weeks I get a nice little bonus...sometimes a couple hundred bucks, but the length some idiots go to to cash in on a little copper is unbelievable. To risk death for a few dollars is inconceivable to me. It is easier to get a job and make money the old fashioned way, and a lot less risky.
Circumstancially, a company I used to work for had a severe problem: some of the foremen would order much more wire than was necessary for the job and cash in on the surplus. For example, if we had a 3 phase installation of 500MCM at 125' they would purposely order the wire for a 150' run. Imagine the amount of loss on such a job!
Click to expand...

Yep at least 1 foreman! You're FIRED!
 
Hey I'm new here, I have seen this before and more recently in other applications. It seems that, and I don't want to profile any particular group, but drug users and meth addicts in general are doing a lot of this kind of thing. They are also sawing off and stealing copper cooling tubing behind fast food and other places. :confused: What is copper going for these days? When I was a kid in the late 70's it was up to $1.00 a lb.
 
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