KY | jd7520 - 7/9/2025 18:31
The field created by the loop in the knot drops the surge in half with each knot. I really don't care if you don't think it works, but it most assuredly does. I will go with my track record of not having lost a fencer for years when before I would lose one once or twice a season. And yes I have lightning arrestors on my fence. The fence is not where the surge is coming from, it is the line. My fencer is on the end of the line also. Also it's not like it costs anything to do so what's your beef with it?
No beef at all here, no harm or cost in making all the loops folks want to make. I was just making a point that if it really was that easy, large companies with experienced electrical engineers wouldn’t spend millions of dollars on surge protection, their engineers would say “instead of spending all this money on surge protection, let’s just tie some knots in all our power feeds”. After 8 years in the Navy and 20 now in power plants, I can assure you the answer isn’t a few loops in some power feeds. I even had someone tell me once that the loops in some medium voltage (7200v) overhead lines were for impedance and not for strain relief so there’s all sorts of trains of thought out there. I’ve been at this game awhile, although I’m not in the fence charger business, voltage is voltage and current is current, period. I think this widely believed theory started when electrical suppliers, cable TV providers and even the phone company would loop the wire where it comes into the box. Somewhere along the line someone either assumed or a technician pulled someone’s leg and told them it was lightning protection, when in fact those loops are just there to facilitate future needs of having to move equipment or splice cables without having to pull a whole new run. Just my theory on how it maybe started. I still think if you’d have experienced a severely high spike since you’ve triple looped your cord, your cord would have blown out at a loop if it really created enough impedance to do anything. I’ve seen the results of enough lightning running in on 500 and 161kv lines just at my own plants over the years with lightning arrestors and grounding mats underground that you wouldn’t believe, and have still destroyed switchgear and transformers. Maybe I’ll pitch that we put some knots in our high-side 500kv transmission feeds the next time we have an event and see if I get laughed out of the meeting. |
Does a guy have to spend $4k on a Gallagher fencer?
