Excellent video! Looks like the AC service took a hit! Lots of damage. Those EDI conflict monitors are bullet proof - undamaged. Good job troubleshooting in a timely manner.
Thanks Mike! I was thinking the same thing. Those EDI CMUs are probably the most resiliant pieces of equipment in that cabinet. Much appreciate the comment!
@@streetsmartstrafficIf you have specific intersections that tend to lose equipment during storms, it might be worthwhile to consider wiring in a 'whole house' surge protector.
I have heard that sound before, the relay chattering. sound like there was a voltage problem with the service, with the initial turn on. Current high with all lights and voltage low. All inputs to load switch indicates controller turned on all colors. The relay for ac doesn't turn load switches on, just output voltage to field when controller turns on load switch colors for output of ac through triac switch in side loaf switch 24 volts dc turns on each output for triac to pass ac through to the field.All load switches led on indicates controller. Some relays were mercury switches in flash to long will not release, when taking it out of flash. The trick, bump the relay and they will sometime release. From working with relays sticking happens. Just bump, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.
Thanks for your input! Yes, my favorite thing when helping contractors over the phone is to tell them to give the outside of the cabinet (power side) a good donkey kick. LOL Thanks for commenting!
It adds up fast! A new traffic signal cabinet was order recently and I saw the total of $40,000! Granted it was outfitted with all equipment that was needed to run the signal inside the cabinet as well. But Geesh! Now I know why...LOL
@@streetsmartstraffic I don't think the strike was physically close, but more electrically close (substation or similiar) just because only one indicator (the lit one) blew out on each pole. How are traffic lights fed service-wise? Do they get a own subservice from the substation, or are they fed by the closest domestic service that can be found? What about areas out of nowhere where there is no 120v buildings close? Seems traffic lights are very "early" on the service feed so they get hit first if a strike hits the substation.
@@sebastiannielsen They have their own disconnect & meter. Then that feeds to the closest transformer on the utility grid. That's why we get calls sometimes that there's an area wide power outage but the signal is still running (battery back up). But I guess it could have been farther upstream (like a substation) where the power loss occured in that scenario. As far as this one, I'm not sure where the signal falls in sequence of the service feed on the grid.
I don't think its a grounding fault. It seems that the storm have hit the incoming 120v AC supply, which blew out the surge protector relay ("bus relay" as he calls it) and then blew out all LED indicators that were on for the moment, and also fried the controller and also all the load switches. So the load switches that were "off" for the moment, sacrified itself to protect the LED indicators. Remember how a single indicator from almost every pole burnt out. That tells me the surge comes "from the cabinet" and not "from the pole(s)". So the single indicator that was lit up at the exact moment the surge hit, blew out. So grounding the poles would have gained zero protection here as the high voltage entered from the cabinet side. Im pretty sure the poles were properly grounded, but as I said, when it comes from AC side, grounding the poles will be no gain. It will only protect from a direct hit to a pole. Actually, when the surge comes fromt the AC side, grounded poles actually makes the situation worse, as the surge now have a ground potential to flow to, and thus hit things "harder" than if the poles had a floating ground. Thats why in some surge situations, you rather want a isolated ground so the surge doesn't have anywhere to go. But that would not be suitable in a traffic light scenario, but in other scenarios, for example in hospitals and such, you have equipment with no ground, as a form of surge protection. As opposed to the other video where there was a direct hit to a particular pole (which was properly grounded, and thus not much of the surge voltage enters the cabinet) and the surge entered the traffic light system from that pole. That saved pretty much everything in that cabinet except for a a detector loop card, controller, BIU, POE supply and a load switch. Seems that if the surge take the "back door", the surge has to go through 2 load switches and then theres not much left of the surge to destroy the second load switch, but if the surge takes the "front door", then theres nothing much to protect from surge and everything blows out. Seems however the detector PSU's sacrified themselves to protect the detector cards tough.
@@sebastiannielsen ...unless the pole took a hit and it wasn't grounded locally, but instead to the cabinet's ground (which it shouldn't be for this very reason). In that case, your "ground" in the cabinet (or neutral, same thing since they're bonded at the supply) will be at 1000s of volts relative to the hot line (normally 120V). So the hot line will briefly become your current sink, and the ground will be the current supply, at many times the regular supply voltage. Same effect as you astutely pointed out that everything that was "on" at the time got cooked. I recall hearing a NASA engineer discussing a shuttle pad lightning strike years ago, and he said the issue with strikes usually isn't that your supply sees a surge, but that your local ground is no longer at 0V potential. The poorer your ground path (number and spacing of grounding rods, conductor gauge, soil types, etc.), the more it'll impact things connected to that grounding network. This is all just speculation based on the available evidence, of course.
@@ereisch It seems that if a pole would be hit, it would get burnt out no matter the ground, (and that a local ground only "saves" more of the cabinet) and every indicator on that particular pole would get burnt out since the neutral will then act as the return/ground for the surge. Since so many load switches got trashed, and also the power supplies of the detector cards got trashed too, it seems that it must be the AC supply side that got the hit. (Compare it to the other strike here on the channel, where one detector card got most of the hit. This because the pole were properly grounded, which means the surge pulled the ground potential to many tousands of volts, which means the detector coil buried in the ground, got very "hot" potential-wise, which means the surge entered from coil side and not supply side). However, it seems that the UPS for that particular cabinet (in this video) should got quite a hit too, unless its of a standby type that shunts the 120v AC incoming to the load when theres no power loss.
They're in Mississippi. The ants are going to move in, no matter what you do. Unless they've filled the cabinet or eaten the plastic from the wires, those few ants aren't really that concerning, for the area.
I love the old style incandescent light bulb without protection!!! LOL
Excellent video! Looks like the AC service took a hit! Lots of damage. Those EDI conflict monitors are bullet proof - undamaged. Good job troubleshooting in a timely manner.
Thanks Mike! I was thinking the same thing. Those EDI CMUs are probably the most resiliant pieces of equipment in that cabinet. Much appreciate the comment!
@@streetsmartstrafficIf you have specific intersections that tend to lose equipment during storms, it might be worthwhile to consider wiring in a 'whole house' surge protector.
I have heard that sound before, the relay chattering. sound like there was a voltage problem with the service, with the initial turn on. Current high with all lights and voltage low. All inputs to load switch indicates controller turned on all colors. The relay for ac doesn't turn load switches on, just output voltage to field when controller turns on load switch colors for output of ac through triac switch in side loaf switch 24 volts dc turns on each output for triac to pass ac through to the field.All load switches led on indicates controller. Some relays were mercury switches in flash to long will not release, when taking it out of flash. The trick, bump the relay and they will sometime release. From working with relays sticking happens. Just bump, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.
Thanks for your input! Yes, my favorite thing when helping contractors over the phone is to tell them to give the outside of the cabinet (power side) a good donkey kick. LOL
Thanks for commenting!
that was one expensive intersection
It adds up fast! A new traffic signal cabinet was order recently and I saw the total of $40,000! Granted it was outfitted with all equipment that was needed to run the signal inside the cabinet as well. But Geesh! Now I know why...LOL
That mist have taken a fairly close lightning strike
Or it could have hit the 120v supply (a direct hit to a substation or similiar belonging to the 120v AC utility) so the surge entered that way.
I'm assuming some kind of surge came close to that signal. Haven't had an intersection with that many blown out LED indications in awhile...
@@streetsmartstraffic I don't think the strike was physically close, but more electrically close (substation or similiar) just because only one indicator (the lit one) blew out on each pole.
How are traffic lights fed service-wise? Do they get a own subservice from the substation, or are they fed by the closest domestic service that can be found? What about areas out of nowhere where there is no 120v buildings close?
Seems traffic lights are very "early" on the service feed so they get hit first if a strike hits the substation.
@@sebastiannielsen They have their own disconnect & meter. Then that feeds to the closest transformer on the utility grid. That's why we get calls sometimes that there's an area wide power outage but the signal is still running (battery back up).
But I guess it could have been farther upstream (like a substation) where the power loss occured in that scenario.
As far as this one, I'm not sure where the signal falls in sequence of the service feed on the grid.
Something tells me those poles weren't properly grounded when they were installed.
I don't think its a grounding fault. It seems that the storm have hit the incoming 120v AC supply, which blew out the surge protector relay ("bus relay" as he calls it) and then blew out all LED indicators that were on for the moment, and also fried the controller and also all the load switches. So the load switches that were "off" for the moment, sacrified itself to protect the LED indicators.
Remember how a single indicator from almost every pole burnt out. That tells me the surge comes "from the cabinet" and not "from the pole(s)". So the single indicator that was lit up at the exact moment the surge hit, blew out. So grounding the poles would have gained zero protection here as the high voltage entered from the cabinet side. Im pretty sure the poles were properly grounded, but as I said, when it comes from AC side, grounding the poles will be no gain. It will only protect from a direct hit to a pole.
Actually, when the surge comes fromt the AC side, grounded poles actually makes the situation worse, as the surge now have a ground potential to flow to, and thus hit things "harder" than if the poles had a floating ground. Thats why in some surge situations, you rather want a isolated ground so the surge doesn't have anywhere to go. But that would not be suitable in a traffic light scenario, but in other scenarios, for example in hospitals and such, you have equipment with no ground, as a form of surge protection.
As opposed to the other video where there was a direct hit to a particular pole (which was properly grounded, and thus not much of the surge voltage enters the cabinet) and the surge entered the traffic light system from that pole. That saved pretty much everything in that cabinet except for a a detector loop card, controller, BIU, POE supply and a load switch. Seems that if the surge take the "back door", the surge has to go through 2 load switches and then theres not much left of the surge to destroy the second load switch, but if the surge takes the "front door", then theres nothing much to protect from surge and everything blows out. Seems however the detector PSU's sacrified themselves to protect the detector cards tough.
@@sebastiannielsen ...unless the pole took a hit and it wasn't grounded locally, but instead to the cabinet's ground (which it shouldn't be for this very reason). In that case, your "ground" in the cabinet (or neutral, same thing since they're bonded at the supply) will be at 1000s of volts relative to the hot line (normally 120V). So the hot line will briefly become your current sink, and the ground will be the current supply, at many times the regular supply voltage. Same effect as you astutely pointed out that everything that was "on" at the time got cooked.
I recall hearing a NASA engineer discussing a shuttle pad lightning strike years ago, and he said the issue with strikes usually isn't that your supply sees a surge, but that your local ground is no longer at 0V potential. The poorer your ground path (number and spacing of grounding rods, conductor gauge, soil types, etc.), the more it'll impact things connected to that grounding network.
This is all just speculation based on the available evidence, of course.
@@ereisch It seems that if a pole would be hit, it would get burnt out no matter the ground, (and that a local ground only "saves" more of the cabinet) and every indicator on that particular pole would get burnt out since the neutral will then act as the return/ground for the surge.
Since so many load switches got trashed, and also the power supplies of the detector cards got trashed too, it seems that it must be the AC supply side that got the hit.
(Compare it to the other strike here on the channel, where one detector card got most of the hit. This because the pole were properly grounded, which means the surge pulled the ground potential to many tousands of volts, which means the detector coil buried in the ground, got very "hot" potential-wise, which means the surge entered from coil side and not supply side).
However, it seems that the UPS for that particular cabinet (in this video) should got quite a hit too, unless its of a standby type that shunts the 120v AC incoming to the load when theres no power loss.
@@sebastiannielsen Very insightful. Great explanation Sebastian.
@@ereisch Very insightful. Like your NASA quote. Thanks for commenting
are we just gonna ignore that theres a trail of ants in the box
yes. yes we are.
LOL. What ants?
I think at this point, the ants fell to back of the line of issues needing remedeid...🤣
They're in Mississippi. The ants are going to move in, no matter what you do. Unless they've filled the cabinet or eaten the plastic from the wires, those few ants aren't really that concerning, for the area.