Pole Transformer Fabrication

[UTubeisSHIT523441]

about the price... thats why they use the thick >>aluminium<< strip on the secondary. If they use copper instead, the price will probably skyrocket.. They still use the copper wire on primary though.

[blackmesa25]

God I love those transformers!!!!

How can anyone give this a thumbs down!!

Wicked video ;-)

Thumbs up!!!!

[mtdeezy]

Wait... Is that aluminum strip the secondary coil?

[hitachi088]

fuck, those thing are made so cheap! aluminum, WTF people!!

[donnyab]

that what I NEED for my amp !!!

[ChumpusRex]

Disappointing that people are still making transformer with aluminium sheets. Al is a relatively poor conductor compared to Cu, so increases winding losses. The use of sheets is also sub-optimal, as the large conductor cross-sectional area leads to large eddy current losses (part of the core losses). Finally, on such distribution transformers, the use of steel cores is also not ideal, and the use of metallic glass cores gives much better performance and lower operating costs.

[frosty956]

@ChumpusRex Actually, the magnetic field outside the cross section of the core is very tiny, so the flux cutting the cross section of the sheets is almost zero, so there are essentially no eddy currents in the aluminium sheets. The use of steel cores is ideal, we have to consider cost of materials here, ease of fabrication etc. Even though Al. has a higher resistivity, we can compensate by making the conductors larger, hence the sheets. A modern large power transformer is easily 99% efficient

[yourTIV0]

@ChumpusRex Actually, Aluminum is a superb conductor for this application. Using solid copper in place of the aluminum would be insanely expensive, and aluminum is a quite decent conductor.

In fact, the main lines going in to the load centers of many homes and businesses are aluminum (or copper plated aluminum), anywhere from 3 to 4/0 AWG.

[ChumpusRex]

@yourTIV0 It wouldn't be "insanely" expensive. It would be more expensive, sure. However, the cost recovery time is short. Upgrading from Al windings to Cu has a typical repayment time of between 2 and 4 years, due to lower losses, unless the transformer is very lightly loaded.

Similarly, for the use of amorphous metal rather than cold-rolled silicon steel, the payback time is also around 4 years.

[RPSautomotive]

I was at this facility yesterday. It is Power Partners now, not ABB. It was amazing. 650,000+ thousand feet of manufacturing. Up to 900 of those pole mount transformers a day. They just need to start manufacturing BIOTEMP (or FR3) and they would be king!

[bjtaudio]

When the assembly is baked and the glues sets, the winding are bonded together achieving very high strength. This is important, because in power distribution systems the amount of power and prospective fault current is typically thousands to tens of thousands of amps, if a short circuit appears on the secondary of a transformer the magnetic forces applied on the windings within the transformer can physically rip the windings apart. So the high strength glue stops this from happening.

[bjtaudio]

This is small single phase primary to split phase secondary may be 25KVA@2% . This video has been handy and now I use aluminium sheet coil for my low voltage secondaries as it way cheaper than copper. The core steel sheet material that ABB are using is a high quality material that can run at a high flux levels like 1.5 Teslas with very low core power loss, meaning you get more volts per turn, so less turns of wire are needed, better regulation. 

[bjtaudio]

@bjtaudio Using mineral Oil is king too as it not only drastically increases the insulation capabilities, but also acts as a cooling system, massively increasing the amount of power the windings can dissipate before overheating compared with dry types. The only down side to it is if the transformer overheats or the oil ignites from an internal flash-over, the sudden and massive increase of pressure can rupture the outer metal tank, with dangerous explosive killer force. ouch!

[rsp196607]

This doesn't show the process of bonding the bus bars to the aluminum strip. Perhaps it's proprietary or uninteresting.

If the secondary is 3-wire, center-tapped, then there must be three bus bars bonded to the aluminum strip at different locations, one at each end, and one in the middle. Three bus bars do indeed emanate from the secondary, But it's hard to see that they emanate from different locations on the aluminum strip.

[Serostern]

@rsp196607 The aluminium IS the busbar.

[bjtaudio]

@rsp196607 Yes it's hard to see in the video but yes the 3 bus bar aluminium secondary leads do in fact emanate from 3 different locations 1 at each end of the winding and one in the center. It's a center tapped secondary probably 120v -0-120v. I've been folding and soldering my secondary connections and YES you can solder aluminium together! need aluminum solder. When its baked the glue bonds the windings and the aluminium sheet bus bar connections together, so they don't rattle loose.

[Ruupie1982]

Great video, thnx for uploading.

That is some heavy stuff that they are building.

First you think that you can lift the thing easily but then you see that there is a lot of wiring and steel coming up and the finished transformer is very heavy now.

In Holland we don't use transformers like these but we use a small transformer building that will send the electricity to a couple of houses and trough underground wires.

[raia6]

coool i want to make one alone

[anagennao]

I use to work in the industrial power field (mainly reclosers) and have serviced several transformers. I've never seen thermoplastic busings on a transformer before. I'm fairly certain the the busings seen in this video were ceramic bushings, at least the primary was, couldn't see the secondaries very well.

[hardstyle905]

check my videos for some real high voltage transformers

[DrMR2002]

You can buy a refurbished or new single-phase pylon transformer for around $1200 - $30,000 depends on size. Companies that sell them is Alfa transformer or Temco transformer.

[highx21]

Let's get some Moloney stuff in here.

[filterdecay]

his job would be my hell.

[R3MUS2007]

cool, always wanted to know how those things we made.

[ubuntupokemoninc]

To the "Average person" i could use the raw power for one hell of a Tesla coil!!! ;)

[quantumbits]

I am thinking that the fault detector is actually across a few windings of the primary near the ground side.

[luvtrns4evr]

cool video and tutorial. I saw one blow up on a pole once.. oil evrywhere and fire as well.

[VinceElectricCompany]

Nice video. I wonder what are the names of the songs in the video?

[coolbluelights]

internal fault detector... is that that little red light I see on some of these? anyone know why some transformers have these red lights and others don't???

[wow1022]

heh heh ive played a 60hz tone into my audio amplifier and used a small transformer to step the output up to 120V and i could charge ipods and stuff :D

[ubuntupokemoninc]

@wow1022 unless you had a high watt stereo you would get like .01ma on the out put, just a suggestion, run the audio into the gate of a mosfet transistor and then put low voltage high current into the the drain, then from the source to the transformer and to the output of the transformer to the ground of the input voltage

[letseeitplease]

i love this video, we always wonder how these transformers work,

i have seen some blow up, those are the best ones on youtube,

thanks for posting your video, KaBooooooom , because Stephen said so

[ValanceElectron]

I'd love to have one of those to back-feed and play with... safely that is, lol!

[a380rockerfan]

@ValanceElectron oh hell yeah! u should get 1 from a scrapyard or sumthing.

[rolinychupetin]

Excellent!

[johnmason2354]

They were not made with aluminum untile the last couple of years. Cooper was the conductor metal and it can withstand much more surges than the aluminum. They tried aluminum back in the seventies an everytime an electricle storm sent a surge throught the coil, it burned holes in the winding and thus weakened the ampacity and caused the damaged area to heat up and cause the coil to fail.

Now, they are winding with aluminum again..

Damn, I thought they would learn.

[domyaska]

wonderful program!! thanks for sharing

[CommanderB9488]

WOW awesome! So that's what's inside those things! Thanks for sharing!

[wexman1968]

Very cool

[pacificcresttrans]

Very good information on the role of transformers in the energy grid. Rightly said that the energy network is useless without transformers. Companies like Pacific Crest Transformers manufacture liquid-filled distribution transformers...It has loads of whitepapers and articles related to transformers and its role in the U.S. economy.

[Sillyzombie666]

TRANSFORMERS MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE ....im such a dork

[pmgodfrey]

@Sillyzombie666

No!  It's ROBOTS BAKING PIES!

[Outlander11]

Wow. Very primitive, turn of the century 1900's primitive. Now I see why they always explode and catch on fire. No Aluminum is "high temperature".

The electrical industry needs to come up to modern times.

[mm981kcolg]

Just because transformers are very simple, they are not primitive. There is very little to improve on the basics of the transformer, just as there is very little to improve on a car's steering wheel.

The efficiency, simplicity, and reliability of a transformer are as high as they can be practically made. However, what few improvements can be made have been implemented, such as fault monitoring and detection.

Any device has its limits. If abused or overloaded, all devices will eventually fail.

[beeterolds]

No aluminum isnt a high temp metal.. but it transfers heat better than copper does..

Btw they only explode when they are overloaded or shorted out.. if you want the electrical industry to come up with a better way to produce a transformer.. expect to pay a lot MORE on your electric bill.. cause engineering isnt free

[fuhQ6969]

Almost free in China.

[beeterolds]

Hey man dont JInx us! Keep the work here in america

[sasho54]

"No aluminum isnt a high temp metal.. but it transfers heat better than copper does.."

The later is simply not true:

Copper : 401 W/(m*K) ;

Aluminum : 237 W/(m*K) .

[beeterolds]

Ya ok.. then why would they manufacture them this way for so long? why not just use copper then?

It has to be the cost.. for what theyre doing perhaps its more cost effective to use aluminum over copper.. who knows

[sasho54]

Question reasonable. But the explanation is simple: People do not know what the transformer is and how it works - it is a black box for the most of them. And they care only the price, the power and, sometimes, the good name of the manufacturer. The efficiency, the losses, the long term stability are far from their day-to-day sight. On the countraty, if we encourage the building of more perfect transformers, they will pay off shortly with lower energy losses.

[eliluong]

wow that's neat!

[rasz]

that oil is nasty stuff, dont inhale it kids!

[hackerfriendly]

Mineral oil? But it's so tasty!

[VampireTech]

I work at a transformer factory in Norway which was owned by ABB and I've always wondered how these small transformers were made.

[giancarlolandrover]

@VampireTech

nice work!

[javier020391]

very very god

[giancarlolandrover]

i have problems with my transformer.... are very expensive :(

[4160V60Hz]

Around $30,000!

[giancarlolandrover]

wow man.... :(

[originaldarrkon]

very interesting.. thanks :)

[defcon007]

Actually "THEtechknight" these typical utility transformers are single-phased with secondary voltage output of 240V (or 3 wire two 120V + neutral). They can and are often banked for a 3 phase service and wired in any of the delta or wye combinations depending on requirements.

[NocturnalCeej]

Mo Twister should've hosted Pinoy

idol.

[Thentalus]

yeah ! ^^ ABB!

a german mark :D

[THEtechknight]

those transformers are duo-phase 220v

[comaradella]

mineral oil?

[melevy]

Yes, mineral oil is non-conductive and transfers heat well from the internal parts.

[SmashCOBamberg]

wow, now i understand why these transformers are so fuckin' expensive!

[metermatch]

@SmashCOBamberg A 160 MVA power transformer at a receiving station, 230kv to 34.5 kv costs about 5 million dollars.

[Tupeutlatesla]

@metermatch not even talking about GSU Monsters price tag :))))))

[Tupeutlatesla]

@SmashCOBamberg Actually those are small split-phase transformers and not that expensive. If you want some big and expensive stuff look for step-up or step-down substation transformers.

[DrEMplushrest]

Interesting vid, I like the aluminium sheet secondaries! There's barely any turns of those, but then it is a big stepdown ratio, probably 16kv to 110v? Some comments in the voice over are a bit odd though, "high voltage current" and "electrical steel"?!

[weeardguy]

@ Dr.EMplushrest: with 'electrical steel' they probably mean 'soft' steel (could be that that isn't the wright translation) that has very low remanent magnatism: if the remanent magnatism would be high, the transformer would be more inefficient.

[bamaslamma1003]

@DrEMplushrest Makes sense though. Primary on these is high voltage, low current (7200 or 14,400 volts, maybe a few amps). Secondary is the exact opposite, low voltage, high current (120/240 volts, hundreds of amps when fully loaded).

[bubbleglass]

was hoping I'd see this again after seeing it on tv

[RevanEcks]

That is Cool.

[nanotechmom]

This is our favorite TV show!

[zezimashock]

it is a must for me !!!!

just to have one and fall in love with it ;P

[kylesenior]

I'm trying to get a pig at the moment

[LoQ138]

Go ABB!

[mxslick50]

LOL I'm the one who sent in the request to see this on the "How It's Made" website. :)  Was awesome to see it make air. :)

[uploadJ]

Very enlightening; thanks for posting.

[BarneySaysHi]

Thanks for posting, I never realised that so little material was used in these transformers.

[neondave]

rather than dipping it in a tank of water, couldnt they pull a vacume through the port where the relief valve attaches ? If they did find a leak under water, would all the oil be contaminated ? Heck I dunno, I have a 14400/10kva that i like to play with :-)

[voon100]

I love it!

[Sphinxfalcon]

Weird, i remember hearing a female voice when I saw this on TV. Is it re-dubbed for different countries?

[SilverlinerOV50]

Must be.

[SpiritsoftheWolf]

awesome, thanks for sharing this!!! 5 stars

[HedgehogTH]

I want one Pole Transformer now for my tesla Coil

[CJackSparrow79]

fucking wonderful

[geossito]

thanx, thanx, for sharing it!!!!

[sheupe]

I have this on my ipod

[form109]

cool video.

[REWYRED]

Neat, I always thought they were wound in an almost cylindrical kinda shape that matched the shape of the tank, and a round iron core... Never would have thought its your "standard looking" transformer in a tank like that..

[mikeandtiff]

Thanks for shareing this.. I have always wanted to see the details on one of these pole pigs, and how they are built

[theroastedpotatoman]

thankyou for posting this :)