500kV Tower Construction 3 -Line Work Time Lapse

[SaiGon199X]

Human is Awesome, we can build anything and destroy everything we want @.@

[JetMechMA]

One of the best videos on Youtube, by far.

[Thorpe741]

I thought my balls were big....

[jcmegabyte]

No doubt this job is not for whimps! XD Thanks for checking it out!

[MATUXAZ]

LEGO

[jcmegabyte]

Kinda looks like it - sort of like insects, too! XD

[MadScientist267]

Pretty cool... the time lapse makes the helicopter look like a giant mosquito, delivering ants to the tower. Almost wanted to swat at it... LOL

[jcmegabyte]

They definitely do look like bugs!  XD Thanks for checking it out!

[pct1paulinho]

Isso realmente é um show, aqui no Brasil a realidade é bem diferente, os montadores ,aqui, trabalham com a "faca entre os dentes", nossas emprezas que constroem as linhas estão mais interessadas em obter lucro que realizar um trabalho eficiente e rapido, os montadores ganham em média U$ 4 a hora para arriscar a vida nas altura... mas este trabalho me fascina, bom video, parabéns!

[jcmegabyte]

I am surprised to hear that wages are so low for such potentially dangerous work! I hope conditions change there for the better... Thanks for the view and nice comment about my video :-) Cheers!

[TransportationSupply]

this type of construction is intriguing to me. It is both beautiful and technical. What an exciting job!

[JcmdiStockFootage]

It was indeed fascinating to watch and film :-)  Thanks for watching!

[bertrandka]

Let say I did fly a bit of powerline construction, cable car in Europa with light and medium helicopter... but every time, I take great pleasure watching video of THE TEAM and feel we, here, are still amateur...

[jcmegabyte]

It definitely is interesting to watch this kind of construction, and I would imagine that the techniques are different depending on the specific needs and environment, as well as the local preferences and methods. Thanks for stopping by! =)

[kaiunmanzoku]

I like this video.

[jcmegabyte]

I'm happy you enjoyed the show - thanks for watching and commenting! :-)

[laineman66634]

good lainman

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks! :-)

[arunia111]

very good video !

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for watching! :-)

[vertoisful]

awsum song 132478

[vertoisful]

mabee thay caree wires farther

[vertoisful]

fave song

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for watching (and listening) - glad you enjoyed it! :-)

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks for the info! I did notice that this tower was much heavier than the others, and I think this was built with a crane instead of helicopters. Unfortunately I missed most of the line-pulling operations, but was lucky to get some shots this one day. =)

[Rangerbelt]

Cutting in the insulators after the cable is pulled eliminates dealing with the weight of the cable. You fasten in the insulators and then cut out the cable in between. I have to give those guys credit, that is one tough job. I think you have to be just a little nuts to do the job. No disrespect intended.

[jcmegabyte]

It was definitely interesting to watch the whole procedure. No doubt the job isn't without its risks, and you certainly couldn't have acrophobia to work up there either! XD

[vertoisful]

i cant find that song at all

[vertoisful]

chatablanc a.com to chat

[trancelistic]

INtresting job, seem not boring at all. Where do I sign up?:)

[jcmegabyte]

Climbing around on the towers and getting dropped-off there by helicopter looks like fun, but you definitely can't be afraid of heights to work like that! XD

[soundseeker63]

Its weird how they string out the wire then cut in the insulators. I always thought the did it the other way round. Which is the final part because it looks no where near finished here?

[jcmegabyte]

This was all new to me, and fascinating to watch. At this point, they had put in 5 of the 6 insulators then quit for the day.. They still had one more insultor to install the following day, then they removed the pullies and scaffolding and that was about it. I haven't seen any other changes to this or any of the other towers in the area since then. If they do anything else to them, I'll try to catch it on film! =)

[vertoisful]

awsum vid

[vertoisful]

i love that song thanks for the name :)

[vertoisful]

wat is that song i like it

[JcmdiStockFootage]

Thanks for watching! The music is "Symbian Rhythms V2" from the "Silicon Landscape" CD By Technician (yours truly). There is some mroe info in the vid description :-)

[vertoisful]

wat is that song

[risingsunemployee]

are they man who are working? they just look like bees!

[jcmegabyte]

They do look like insects, with large fragonflies tending to them XD ..but they are indeed just men working :-)

[g0sth4ck3d]

stunning, you never realise the work that goes into these towers that bring us the juice. great vid. !

[jcmegabyte]

So true... I actually recorded various parts of the first tower's construction for over 8 weeks, from clearing the site to tightening the final bolts... and who knows how much engineering and off-site construction happened prior to that which I was not even privvy to! Thanks for watching and commenting! -)

[axonnsbuddy]

you must construct additional pylons

[jcmegabyte]

I think they will be putting up more of these next year, in order to complete the circuit. Hopefully I'll get some more footage then :-)

[stephanosanio]

0:01

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks for stopping by!  :-)

[muruganraj83]

OHL

[cydonianman]

what are those 2 legged insects? :D

[jcmegabyte]

"man bugs" XD They look sort of like ants though.. Thanks for checking it out :-)

[BasicModelling]

Great video.. :)

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for watching and the kind words!  :-)

[BasicModelling]

@jcmegabyte Well, it had me captivated.. especially those helicopters.. :) Takes some skilled pilot work to navigate securely around those pylons.. :)

[Probablyacowtbh]

Fascinating to watch, I'd always wondered how these buggers are built.

Cheers!

And that smaller chopper looks adorable in time-lapse for some reason.

[jcmegabyte]

This was definitely fascinating to watch - even in realtime... Funny how the men and machines look like bugs when sped-up a lot! XD

[jcmegabyte]

This was definitely fascinating to watch - even in realtime. Funn how the men and machines look like bugs when sped-up a lot! XD

[Probablyacowtbh]

@jcmegabyte Hah aye definitely. Mentally, I imagine the smaller chopper acting as some sort of overlord/boss for each pylon. Doing a bit of light work, buggering off and then inspecting the finished project to see if it meets it's standards.

[BleckedPL]

whats name that song?

[jcmegabyte]

The music is "Symbian Rhythms V2" from the "Silicon Landscape" CD By Technician (yours truly). Discography at JCMDI d0t c0m

Thanks for checking it out! =)

[Postie218]

Thanks to all of the guys that do that work.

[jcmegabyte]

Definitely! It looks a bit dangerous, but pretty cool too! :-)

[Itachikiller12]

Love Timelapse stuff! The helicopter looks so fake in "timelapse mode" but thats how it is.. :P

*5* *Starz*

[jcmegabyte]

They do look weird - I've heard them compared to large flying bugs at this speed! Thanks for watching =)

[PCgamer1010]

This is pretty neat:)

Good Work.

[jcmegabyte]

Glad you enjoyed - thanks for watching!

[sdrfgvrfgvsfravgdsvS]

fun timelapsed heli :)

[jcmegabyte]

It was definitely interesting to watch and film! :-)

[TheViciousCyclist]

Great Video! Thank you!

[jcmegabyte]

Glad you enjoyed - thanks for visiting! :-)

[GermanFireFighter95]

!!!!!COOL!!!!! 5*****

[jcmegabyte]

these tower-building events were cool to watch in person, too - even with the time lapse. Thanks for visiting!

[XyleJKH]

do these guys have proper fall arrest ? Just looks like they have a waist belt

[jcmegabyte]

It was pretty hard to see them from the distance I was shooting, but it did appear that they had some sort of safety gear, which probably included a harness and tether... It looked like they were "clipping-on" as they moved around on the tower.

[sixstringsmark]

Nice job with the time-lapse photography assembly!

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for checking it out!! =)

[barbarajakubowska]

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD WORK !

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for watching and the nice comment! =D

[haydin44]

It is a very good work. I was wondering what kind of video camera you are usign?

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks for the nice comment! Nearly all of this time lapse footage was made from thousands of individual still image frames(150 seconds x 30fps), which were shot with a Canon SX10-is. At the very end, the real-time helicopter fly-over was shot with the SX10's video function at only (640x480).

[tall32guy]

Those are funky effects you added to the video. How'd you do that? lol It's almost cartoon-like.

[jcmegabyte]

Basically all I did was speed things up about 30x, using time lapse photography. It does tend to make them look unreal, like insects or animations, but all the images are pretty much the way they came off of the camera. :-)

[companyman007]

i'll never do a job like this :)

great vid!!!

[jcmegabyte]

Working up high like that isn't for everyone, but the pay is pretty decent if you don't mind heights! :-)

[tall32guy]

Great pay though, as someone else said, if you're willing to work in all weather, potentially getting sunburns etc, and willing to take the risks involved.

[yosoyelcaminante]

thanks, great work, great video !

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for watching and commenting! :-)

[Xosite]

You need to get into an apprenticeship with the IBEW, Local PUD, or public contractors. Its nothing that ELITE lineman get likeBoatsnhoes2187 says. I've done it a few times with U-IBEW 121 in Washington.

the pay for a journeyman is around 39$ an hour but with this you get Hazard and a couple other things. Rounds out to be around 45$ an hour.

You could do this on your 4th stage of apprenticeship. Its not hot, its all cold line pulling. Pretty basic stuff. Just in a larger scale

[jcmegabyte]

Great info - thanks! =)

[tall32guy]

Yeah but those guys still have to work hot on other jobs besides this stuff, correct? I'm just asking because I don't know! LOL

[jcmegabyte]

I'm not sure if these guys work on hot lines or not. I bet there are some readers that could answer that question for you though...

[4MotionsR]

I would love a job like that....

What sort of qualifications do you need??

[jcmegabyte]

That's a good question... I would expect that there is a Union involved, and an apprenticeship period before you get the "good" journeyman assignments, but you never know. Perhaps one of the viewers does this for a living and can elaborate...

[boatsnhoes2187]

basically these guys are the "elite" lineman and the chose you, you cant really apply for it.

[1888junkteam]

excellent work!

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks for checking it out! I hope to document more of this sort of work - it's interesting stuff =)

[eshark07]

No they make a lot more than 25-30 dollars and hour. My family works on lines and a lineman in that crew is probably making around 45-50 an hour minimum. Pay is good and raises are fast .

[Xosite]

There are no raises, all journeyman make the same. Depending if you are a GF for FM is were the pay increases.

[tenaciousharmonizer]

worker ants and a big white mosquito bzzing by occasoinally

[tenaciousharmonizer]

is that ants, why is this music so ingrating and annoying....they make likd 25-30 bucks an hour, still , not worth the risk

[mtv221]

Somebody's got to do it, they obviously make more than that, the power is shut off for those cables.

[Xosite]

Journeyman of 2009 makes 39.87 an hour. And your right. the pay sucks for the risk.

[saurabh291080]

in India all this job done, but with out any helicopter.. and also the erection of tower and fixing of channels & angle takes place at the site only

[jcmegabyte]

Interesting - thanks for the info :-)

I think that is normally how it's done here too - with cranes and lots of equipment at the tower site itself.... However, this location is so remote that use of the helicopters and off-site fabrication was needed - especially since disturbing the National Forest is also an issue. It was a probably lot more expensive to do it this way, too! :-)

[eleanorskelter]

awesome video. makes you wonder what these guys are getting paid per hour!

[jcmegabyte]

I wondered that too. I'd guess the pay matches the dangerous nature of the job, at least I hope so! :-)

[OrbVroomer]

Cool.

No room for mistakes up there.

Better not drop any tools....LOOK OUT BELOW !!

Thanks for another good video.

[jcmegabyte]

No doubt! They seem to have a pretty good safety record in spite of the dangerous nature of the job. Gotta be cool gettin' dropped off to work (on the tower) by helicopter! :-)

[amarcordeon]

Excellent and interesting

Thank you

*****

Lillo

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for watching and commenting! :-)

[destroyahdes]

Cool. I'm always fascinated by construction and industry. I like how the cable was pulled.

[jcmegabyte]

I had really hoped to get more of the cable installation parts but almost all of it happened when I wasn't around :-( Still, I did get that one bit, and the helicopter/crew activities were pretty interesting at high speed, too. I liked how the chopper kept adding dudes and stuff as the day progressed! :-)

[kalacaw]

Well this was very intense. The helicopter moved along at a pretty good clip too. :D

[jcmegabyte]

Not that *their* job is boring, but it would be cool if all long dull work days could go by that quickly! :-)

[64mung]

Talk about a hard day at the office! One step from falling to your death in 100 degree heat...WOW!

Nice time lapse camera work, jcm! I love the shot at 2:12..it looks like the workers are sliding down the tower, just like the way a fireman slides down the pole at the firehouse lol ;) Love the chopper shots too!

Defiantly a 5 star video:) Very interesting!

Keep up the great work, jcm!

64m >:-)

[jcmegabyte]

I liked that shot too - reminded me of the bat-pole! I bet you could have some great fun on that tower if you weren't bothered by hieghts and had some good safety equipment. However, in real life, the guys moved around much more slowly and carefully! ( I know *I* would!) :-]

[NewOrleansWoman]

LOL Chris this is GREAT ! great idea for a time lapse !! really fun !

[jcmegabyte]

"Attack of the hyper-active tower ant people" XD

[menchulica]

Very interesting.

Fascinating to see the birds leaving their young or their eggs LOL

Thanyou ;)

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for watching! =)

[xxjixyy]

this is awesome dude! those workers are great!

[jcmegabyte]

They were pretty cool to watch in high speed - and they got like 8 of them up on that tower at once! Thanks for checking it out :-)

[anmoose]

Great footage, again! They're, what, a few hundred feet up in the air? And scurrying around like there's nothing to it.

How long is the span of those lines between towers?

[jcmegabyte]

I think that particular tower is somewhere between 100 and 150 feet high, although I couldn't see the actual base of it over the hilltop.

The span between towers varies a lot, but the longest ones appear to me (rough guestimation) to be 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile.

I would imagine the weight and tension of those lines is in the thousands of pounds. Not the kind of job environment where you'd want to making mistakes! :-)

[anmoose]

Even at "only" 100 feet, I feel a distinct need to tie myself to something. LOL

That span had me wondering. At that length, just the weight of copper and steel alone has to be enormous, but add the tension it must take to draw them up tight, and there's NO margin for error. Not when you're within arm's length of it. Yikes...

[jcmegabyte]

I was over 1/2 mile away so it was hard to see extreme detail, but I believe they use harness and climbing gear, complete with hooks like mountainclimbers use.

I suspect that the powerlines are an aluminum alloy, which would be lighter than copper or steel, but still - the load must be enormous!

And when those lines are energized, you can't get within 25 feet of them (unless you are airborne) or it's arc and death!

Yup, dangerous jobs for sure!

[Hypermobilemind]

The conductor material is nearly always an aluminum alloy, made into several strands and reinforced with steel strands.

Copper was sometimes used for overhead transmission but aluminum is lower in weight for equivalent performance, and much lower in cost.

[jcmegabyte]

Excellent info - thanks! :-)

[rickydepths1]

look at the little ants build their towers...discover channel should compare it to the work amazonian ants build their high walls and towers...pretty nice.

[jcmegabyte]

That's pretty-much what they look like! I did one other video (TimeShift) where I compared cars on the freeway to a trail of ants... the effect worked great! High speed people look just like insects :-)

[canadianentropy]

Great video! Nice follow up to the tower construction. I wouldn't have guessed that they drop the guys off on top of the tower by helicopter.

[jcmegabyte]

I was really hoping to get the helicopter/crew laying out and threading the first tow lines between the towers but unfortunately I missed that part. Still, what I did get was pretty interesting - thanks for watching! :-)

[camorph]

Next time I drive up that way, I'll appreciate the effort that goes into making those towers. Thanks for the lesson.

[jcmegabyte]

It really is an amazing amount of work and engineering that goes into these things - especially these sections in difficult to access places. Thanks for stopping by! :-)

[BlueTobi25]

wow thats awesome :D

my uncle works on those things and he says its really scary XD

[jcmegabyte]

I can imagine! Anyone who is afraid of heights need not apply! :-)

[Alicja7777777]

Wonderful! 5*

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much!

[jcmegabyte]

Definitely - all the people I speed-up seem to look like ants and bugs! :-)

[Austenmad24]

Awesome video dude! :)

[jcmegabyte]

Thanks so much for watching! :-)

[MoviesMusicNature]

Wow! I sure wouldn't want to be those guys working on top of those towers! Very interesting video though to see how this is done.

[jcmegabyte]

You definitely can't be afraid of heights for that job - or hopping from a helicopter onto the tower! :-O

[rifleman0007]

thats alot of work :)

[jcmegabyte]

Yea - those guys put in a good day's work... and out in the sun at 100F+ all day, too! Whew!