You mentioned that you send off the syringe for testing, but what do you do with the other 90% of the oil you drained into the jars?

Jars go too! I think they use the larger amount in the jar for di-electric testing. I vaguely remember doing that back in 2004 when training with some sub techs

We use to have a lab in house of my old company but now they use Doble out of Watertown, Massachusetts. Important information is captured from these samples. They can tell you whether or not the equipment can continue to remain in service.

A lot of heavy equipment gets this type of testing regularly on engine oil and other fluids, especially Caterpillar stuff. When an oil change can cost thousands of dollars, plus down time, and not changing the oil in time can cost tens of thousands of dollars, it makes a lot more sense to test it for $25 so you know exactly when it needs to be changed, as well as being able to see if you have a bearing or cylinder or something starting to go out, since each part in the engine uses a different alloy, and so by looking for the phosphorus or brass or whatever in the oil sample you can see wear metals. Plus seeing if the additives are breaking down, it's getting contaminated, etc. A lot of trucking fleets use oil sampling as well, either to determine when to change the oil, or find the average life for a particular engine hauling a particular type of load. Trucks in stop and go traffic will wear the oil out faster than trucks on the open road, etc. FYI, if you want to test your own oil in a pickup or whatever, you can buy the prepaid oil sample test kits from Caterpillar (and other places too), and it comes with a mailer to send it to the lab. They do coolant etc too.

That's great info Ben! I didn't realize that, thanks for sharing. Cheers!🍻

I’m a substation technician as well and I agree with your post. Certainly not discounting any content of this video.

Our sub techs do the majority of this work (within our sub yards). Biggest reason we do it as well is because of the mounting height. We cover the VR's and Or's out on the line. There wasn't quite an actual negative pressure, just not enough pressure to push the oil out into the syringe as a result of the cold temperature. We cease testing once temps dip below 0. Great info also by the way, thank you! 👊👊

@@Bobsdecline No worries Aaron and as Daniel said I'm not trying to discount the content of your video either. As always you did a great job in this video keeping things accurate and concise. Cheers brother.

Every country or even company does it differently im sure

@@chosen1one930 that’s what I was getting ready to say. Work orders are different on the same jobs with different companies, they will put as much on you as they can get by with!

Excellent advice! I didn't know that, Thanks for sharing 👊👊

There are so few people who actually know how things work, how to repair them, and keep the world working. And almost all of them are unsung heroes, never getting recognition for their work, and often times getting screamed at by people who have not a clue, can't even fill their own gas tank, but they keep on, doing the job, while taking the abuse. I love the show Undercover Boss They have the owner or CEO and they are given entry level tasks to complete, and they do thousands of dollars in damage in just seconds, while the actor they hire to be the " competition" against the undercover boss does the job flawlessly It shines a stark spotlight on how the people at the top are completely useless If all of the people at the top, the CEOs, if they disappeared for a year, no one would notice But let just one of the people who they say aren't worth minimum wage not show up, and the business have to close, the power goes out all over the city, state, country And with the new corporate model of 1 employee doing all the work that literally used to have 6 employees, if that one person doesn't show up, the businesses literally have to close I really wish the little people would strike nationwide till their demands were met for a living wage, but they would all be labeled domestic TERRORISTS and the military would be sent to put them down, literally

They are indeed a lot bigger up close. When I was in high school the local power company had a booth at a career fair. They had one of these regulators that probably was built for a trade show - the casing was glass or plastic so you could see the insides of it and there was no oil. It didn't have power to the 7200v windings of course but they demonstrated how the tap changer worked and you could actually see the parts moving around inside because of the glass case.

Hey Mike as a substation electrician we deal with regulators on a normal basis. From what I can tell you at least for the company I work for we do not change or add oil to regulators. If they fail the Kellman test (oil sample test) the whole unit gets replaced.

Yeah, they're like 7-8 feet tall. Big cans!

Satisfying & informative video Sir. Do you ever smell the oil as well as (just) look at it as a preliminary inspection ?

Wow! How does it get pressurized with Acetylene? Someone thought it was nitrogen or what?

@@jameswyatt1304 When the insulation starts to break down you get arcing occurring within the bushing. The by products of arcing are lots of different gases and acetylene being the most explosive of all the gases. The transformer was only 8 years old so it was lucky that we found the issue during maintenance. It was a 1000MVA transformer so a failure of a transformer that size would of been pretty spectacular.

@@Marks-Garage Yes! Regular maintenance!

We use them regularly.

They are called gas tight sampling syringes, made of glass and teflon. Pretty expensive. They can also safely be filled up with some pretty horible chemicals as well.

Were you using HPLC or GC for dioxin?

After I found out how much PCB/DLC is in some fish, I severely cut back how much seafood I eat.

You are so correct.

🤣 Them ones hurt!! 👊👊🍻

Money is the most-powerful force on Earth. Second place goes to the Strong atomic force. Wife force comes in third. Electromagnetic force comes in fourth.

Thanks! 🙏👊

I do remember remember seeing a mention of "Kunz" somewhere. It must have been your. I'm going to screen shot this comment right now so I don't lose it and I'll check it out! Appreciate it ! 👊👊

Thanks, Cheers Omari!

Ouch!!

Thanks Marc! Cheers!

I had a circa 1950s transformer leak all over my lawn - they had to replace it.

@@ntsecrets Did they replace the lawn?

@@gorillaau it was like a 2x2 foot square... so no. But they assured me that the 1950s oil had "little to no PCBs" lol. It did grow back.

@@ntsecrets LOL. Little to no PCBs, right. :) It sounds like ACS which depending who you ask is either American Cement Sheeting or Abestos Cement Sheeting. I have adopted it from Australia.

@@gorillaau actually the power company at first did not want to replace it, so I called the EPA state agency and they had a truck out within an hour to replace it!

Hah sweet! 🍻

I freaked the fuck out watching him do that

@@credit__devin He had probably already tested it before watching the video. This guy is very meticulous.

Just be aware that not all Transformer oil is Mineral oil. Not sure how some of the synthetic esters they use these days will go. Might be fine.. Might be a fine mess to fix.

Excellent explanation! 🙌🤝🍻

Mineral oil is considered hazardous waste so utilities in different areas properly want to minimize the amount they have to dispose of.

They get a top up about every 10 years! While it's a big jar, it doesn't take much from those big tanks

It's actually not ideal to change oil on a regular schedule, because oil doesn't wear or get contaminated on a regular schedule. Imagine a car in Florida by the beach, and one in Nevada in the desert. Same miles per day, which will actually need an oil change first? With cars we are used to fixed schedules, but that's just for convenience, and because it's a small cost to change the oil. But when you get to larger engines, heavy equipment, etc, the best practice is to periodically test the oil, looking at additive levels, oil breakdown, wear metal levels, contamination, etc, and only change it when it actually needs it, partly because if it's under mild conditions and light use, it may be able to go twice as long and thus save a lot of money, but on the flip side, if it's under heavy use or harsh conditions, or has a leak or something wearing badly, it may need to be changed much more frequently to avoid engine damage. Also, if you see a high level of a particular metal in the oil sample, you can get early warnings that a bearing is going out, or something else is having issues, so that you can plan for preventative maintenance before it fails, or replace a bearing before it destroys a crankshaft or block. With this application, you are not just checking oil condition, you are basically taking a blood sample from the device, so you can actually see if the device itself is having any problems, whether major ones like a leaky seal allowing moisture in, or subtle ones like arcing inside that will leave dissolved gasses and probably elevated copper or aluminum levels in the oil. And if you find those problems, then you can repair or replace the unit before it fails. Just changing the oil won't identify the unit faults.

PCBs are still found at permitted levels in a small and decreasing number of in-service transformers...

@@Bobsdecline TY sir

Oh dear!! 😲

Yeah, a syringe-worth didn't seem that bad, but that jar... was that close to a liter? I hope they check the oil windows after they're done, too.

Hey Mike! Thank you and hope all is well with you and yours! 👊🍻

Thank you🙏 cheers!

Sent off for dielectric testing. Active tests of the insulating properties of the oil.

👊👊 Cheers Alan!

Lol, it's true tho eh!? 🤔🤔

There are situations where you would (while using hot line methods). In most cases no, you would un-tap the riser/lead.

I've seen them in my parts (central US) for 40+ years.

I think they need a larger volume for the di-electric test

I would guess there's a special task force to handle that aspect of doing a full service. I would also surmise they have extra oil in there so the level stays above acceptable for the 10 year service interval.

That's correct!

Disregard I watched that part 5 more times and noticed that those are double knife with a third horizontal knife for bypass up top. Do those have a safety to prevent them being closed before zeroing out the regs? Or just common sense hahahaha

Mostly common sense! Haha. Actually VR's are one of the device included in a list that absolutely cannot be operated without first communicating with our dispatch. The communication includes a 3 way conversation of the zeroing procedure. (2 means of identifying "0"). Operating a device without permission in our company results might result in some pretty serious consequences. That all being said. Your right, this particular one is a 3 in 1 with the horizontal by-pass. We have many versions, this one does not have a lock out. We sometimes build the entire setup with cut outs and also have auto by pass switches which can be kinda sketchy if they're stiff. I should also add that regardless of the type of switch we have another rule that states: Any device can be operated to ISOLATE a line only, without permission is it's an emergency.... Like a fire or a life is in danger.