ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Insulation breakdown on service-drop splice (UK)

We had a few minutes of excitement here last night when there was suddenly a fairly impressive fireworks display and a lot of smoke from the top of a nearby pole.

The insulation had broken down on the splice to a concentric-neutral service drop, resulting in direct phase-to-neutral arcing at the fault.

I scrounged the damaged section from the EDF lineman so that I could take some pictures. This is as it came down from the pole:





Here's where I've cut away the outer covering as much as possible to see what actually started the fault, but there's so little of the crimped joins and insulation left that it's hard to tell:



And finally, here's the pole this came from, seen here with the EDF guy crimping up the new splices.