The ones that failed, could they have still been used or were they for sure bad? What would happen if one of the crew used one that was going to fail the test? I presume they are not failing bad enough that you guys would be in serious danger using it?
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The ones that failed were used up until the time of testing. Most of the sticks are 8 foot long. We work on lines that are 24,900 volts. A one foot section tested at 75,000 volts fails doesn’t mean the entire 8 foot stick would allow voltage to travel all down the stick. If there was a big gouge in the stick the whole length of it, then yeah.
We can use them to work on 115,000 volt lines due to their length. So technically just a 2 foot section of stick has enough insulation to keep us safe. But no thanks, I will use the whole 8 feet. Lol. These sticks take a beating bouncing around in trucks. We keep them in bags or in PCV tubes to keep them from damaging each other.
Ah okay that makes sense. Essentially a good 8 foot stick would have a max of 525kv if each foot is rated to 75kv, since the 8th foot would would hit the end? Not that an 8ft stick is used on that high of a line but just thinking max it could insulate from.
Exactly, testing at 75kv per foot leaves plenty of room for error if a portion of the stick was to get damaged or dirty. Plus we have a Minimum Approach Distance we have to go by also.