Looocy! You Got Some 'Splainin To Do!

Status
Not open for further replies.

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
This morning's service call, by the way the HO described the problems was a lost phase (1ph dwelling). I find out the meter pedestal in the front yard had been hit by cars a couple times, and pushed back straight. So I started there. I first removed the flip-up 3R cover, then the dead front.

So.... if this thing has been in the ground for almost two years, how the +#*(%$ did it work to begin with?

Snapped off Lug.jpg
 
Um, any inspections in that area?

Yes. Has been from 12 years or so.

Is that the lug sitting at the bottom? Maybe it was way loose and the last pull-it-back-up finally knocked it off.



Yes, that's the lug sitting on the bottom. But if it was so loose that the last impact (6 months ago, according to the HO) finally dislodged it, why isn't there any evidence of arcing and sparking? I can see the lug shearing off when the pedestal got involved in a hit-n-run..... but that would mean the the lug would have been tight enough to prevent the conductor from pulling out. And if that's the case, the lug would have still been on the end of the conductor.
 
Maybe the 120v loads all ran by half of them receiving power through the 240v loads, and they just lived with it that way.
 
Or there was another more recent "bend it back" when nobody was home and nothing was on, in which the final blow came to the lug and the perpetrator saw the lug was was disconnected, pulled it off and dropped it in there, hoping nobody would notice.
 
Or there was another more recent "bend it back" when nobody was home and nothing was on, in which the final blow came to the lug and the perpetrator saw the lug was was disconnected, pulled it off and dropped it in there, hoping nobody would notice.

I doubt any hit-and-run suspect would have bothered to pull the cover off, let alone carry a properly-size allen wrench and large pliers to pull it off.
 
Pushed over -> Wire pulled down and snatched out of lug, and lug is damaged.
Pushed upright -> wire travels back towards top then the wire knocks off weakened lug

With pedestal pushed up, part of the wire is pushed up and wedged against right lug of breaker. Weak connection, and right side of breaker does look like it has been hot.

Maybe.

PS: note broken bolt laying in the bottom that used to connect the lug to the bus.
 
So the right leg was ripped loose. Of interest is how it made contact again.

Is the wire on the right partially wedged up against the main breaker lug or bus?

Is that heat discolorization on the right side of the breaker or just picture shadowing?
 
I agree with Mivey on the "pushing down" of the pedestal causing the right-hand short black conductor to be pulled on, developing the force to yank on the right-hand lug. And, when the pedestal was subsequently pushed back into a vertical position, the black conductor pushes back into the position seen, establishing enough of a simple pressure connection to handle the load to the extent that it could. And, since you, 480, got a trouble call from the occupant, the pressure connection was not stable.

Your observation that the pedestal being pushed over more than once would lead me to suspect that the back-and-forth pushing of the service lateral conductor (the black right-hand) would shove the lug out of the way.

I see this all the time in service raceway masts, that get pulled off a building wall by storm-tree-damage coming down on the overhead service drop, and where the mast breaks at the raceway connector at the top of the meter socket. Even when the hinge point at the break in the raceway-to-meter socket connector doesn't break apart, that is, it only hinges, the yank on the service conductors having to be longer than they are, pulls on the meter socket lugs doing all sorts of different types of damage to the meter socket lugs and insulator mounts.

The fascinating thing, to me, is that all this observable damage that we see in the photo happened with a minimum of any welding-level arcing . . .
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top