Whole house "battery" wiring/power...

[Don Kelly]

Hi voltage AC breakers still do use compressed air in some. The 'blast'
is aimed between the arcing contacts to literally blow out the arc.

-------------
High voltage air blast breakers for AC have been around since the late 40's.
They were/are modular with series sections and could then be extended to
higher voltage by adding sections. The contact opening in a section was
about 1 inch and 600psi air was driven through the arc, extending it towards
a vent but not actually interrupting the arc until the arc naturally
collapsed at current zero- then the arc products were blown out and the gap
filled with good dielectric (high pressure air). A two gap section was good
for 72KV and 2 of these in series for 161KV. Two gap sections could be
linked together and put on longer columns at higher voltages there was a
loud bang when they operated. The advantage of these breakers from Europe
was that they were smaller, lighter, faster and cheaper than the oil
breakers in use up to that time in North America.
There was a bit of a war of words going on in IEEE PAS regarding the
relative merits of bulk oil breakers and air blast breakers and air
breakers won out. Even the old circuit breakers at, say 15KV up whether
oil or air blast operated on the principle of removing arc products,
replacing them with good dielectric, when the current went through zero.
This principle is used for HV minimum oil and SF6 breakers (blast of oil or
SF6 through the gap).

Lower voltage DC (up to 350VDC) that we used on submarines just used
blow-out coils to create a magnetic field that 'pushed' the arc-conducting
gases up into chutes lined with alternating metal and insulating plates
that would cool and stretch the arc.

------------
At lower AC voltages- say 5-15KV such breakers are often used- You could
take one of these and derate it to about 400-500VDC and it would likely
work. That current zero every half cycle makes a big difference.

But I've seen enough stuff that I know I haven't seen everything

daestrom

Me too

 

[Archimedes' Lever]

-----
The sensitivity of humans and other mammals, with regard to frequency
happens to peak in the 50-60Hz range. Edison took advantage of this and
Tesla countered with high frequency, high voltage discharges, saying, in
effect, "this is AC, perfectly safe" Both lied (whether they knew it or
not and the not was shown much later) with profit as a motive. Other
hazards such as arcing at switches or poor contacts, worse with DC, were
ignored.

We need big, engine block sized solid state switches.

 

[daestrom]

Interesting - not seen those before. 'ours' were WWII-vintage, and there
was compressed air in the same room as part of the air-start system for
the generators, so I suppose it was no big deal to route it to the
electrical switchboard too.


I'm sure there were all sorts of ways and means of extinguishing
arcs, though - some of which may have worked better than others!

It'd be interesting to know what larger power stations etc. did, too. Had
some friends in NZ with a smaller plant (2,500 kVA) but I've not talked to
them in quite a while, and I don't recall anything obviously resembling
breakers on the site, although I assume they were there somewhere!

Another variant that I worked with was spring to open and the bottom
side of the mechanism pushed a plunger in a cylinder to make a 'gush' of
air that was directed from below the contacts, up between them into the
arc chute. Of course it was just a short burst of air, but the idea was
to blow the hot gases up into the chute where the plates would
separate and cool them.

daestrom

 

[Archimedes' Lever]

THIS POST IS TOTAL TROLL BAIT

No. Your post was nothing more than total group abuse. Nothing more.

ANY FOOL REPOSPONDNNG TO AS ARCHIMEDES IS PATHEITC

That is why only the intelligent response matter. That concept is
impossible for a retarded twit like you to grasp, however.

BUT THE TRUE ID OF THE FOOL WILL BE DIVULGED ON THE NET AND THIS GROUP

In your dreams, little boy.

AND HE WILL PAY FOR ALL THOSE HE HAS DAMAGED EITH HIS DEFAMING
COMMENTARIES AND FLAMING REMARKS ABOUT OTHERS

All of my remarks were 100% free of any temperatures above ambient.

GO BACK TO YOUR HIGH SCHOOL GROUP FOOL

To my knowledge, there are no "high school groups" in Usenet.

THOUGH YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A COWARD YOU WILL HAVE TO FACE THE PIPER
AND PAY FOR YOUR MISDDEDS AND ALL THE LOSE AND SHAME YOU'VE CAUSED
MEMBERS OF THE GROUP

If you were shamed, Roy, you deserved it 100%. Those are the cold,
hard facts, BOY!

YOU ARE A PICE OF HUMAN FILTH

You cannot spell, even when you are not all doped up, making you even
more retarded than your natural state.

YOUR SELF AGRANDIZING WEBPAGES WILL CRASH AND BURN DOWN ON YOU FOOL

I have exactly ZERO webpages. That makes you the fool, RoyTard.

WE ARE WATCHING YOU AND YOUR LONG TIME EVIL GAMES

I have already told you that you need to seek professional mental
health care for that multiple personality disorder that has a monkey on
your backs.

YOU WILL BE BESTED BY ME EVERYTIME

The world is still waiting for the first occasion.

TROLL THERE IS NOTHING YOU CABN DO

You mean, like what I am doing now... which is a gut wrenching laugh?!
Bwuahahahahahahaha!

AND I WILL SEE TO IT THAT YOU SUFFER THE CONSECUENCES OF YOUR FOOLISH
AND HURTFUL GAME

Keep posting threats, you retarded piece of shit, and gmail will be
killing you off yet again.

I AM PROTEUS

You are an absolute fucking retard, Roy.

 

[Archimedes' Lever]

Hmmm, I was replying to the OP about a people here with insecurity
issues, not to you directly.

But apparently you feel a strong need to reply to my OP post, and act
overly-defensive because of those issues.

You must be a lot of fun at staff meetings.

Only around retarded twits that think their observations about the
world are gold.

Sorry, chump... you are not, and your observations are pretty pathetic
as well.

You must be one of the ones at the meeting that was oblivious going in,
oblivious throughout the meeting, and oblivious upon termination of the
meeting. I spend a lot of time performing not only my work, but the work
that oblivious dopes like you think is a normal modus operandi.