Introduction

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Original poster: Don Murray <don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hello, I'm Don. I've been lurking here for a couple of months. 
Thought it was time for me to post.
I've been a high voltage lineman since 1972. Worked as a 
troubleshooter for a power company for the last 20 years. Going to 
retire at the end of the year. I figure on building a Tesla coil, 
when I retire, to keep my high voltage energy level up.
I've been reading the posts on safety lately. In most cases with high 
voltage electrical contact, there will be a small entrance wound and 
a larger exit wound. The exit wound will generally be on a foot or 
whatever part of your body is grounded. On some cases the energy will 
flow on the outside of your body, if you are sweaty. I saw this once 
when a guy got a piece of #4 sol AL into 69KV, vaporized the #4, and 
melted his nylon socks and underwear onto him. He was standing on a 
dry 6 inch bed of pea gravel in a substation. Another time a man fell 
into some 12KV padmount switch gear, contacted his arm and shoulder. 
His arm swelled up as big as a basketball. They lanced it and he 
wasn't doing good until they finally removed his arm three days later.
A little bit about distribution pole transformers. On most of your 
120/240 secondary pole transformers the secondary is actually two 
coils. When they are in series the center point is brought out to the 
X2 bushing. But you can pop the lid and parallel those secondary 
coils. Thats what we have to do if we're going to use it in a 120/208 bank.
Most all distribution pole-mounted transformers and padmount 
transformers, for that matter, are rated to run 150% of their KVA 
rating for extended periods. (several hours) And they are good for 2 
times the rated current for 30 minutes. 3 times for 5 minutes. 4.75 
times for 60 seconds. 6.7 times for 30 seconds.  11.3 times for 10 
seconds. 25 times for 2 seconds. That's per the General Electric 
Distribution Transformer manual.
Be safe and happy coiling,
Don