Articles by Jesse Lor

This Thrusday I will be heading to Duluth to help a sibling move stuff into their new place. Not sure where exactly in Duluth I'll be visiting but it'll be interesting to return, the last time I was there was back in 2009 during a camping trip.

As of August 14th, I happen to be driving down a road not far from my place until I spotted some linework going on. Seems that Xcel is upgrading a 19.9 / 7.9kv (line gets stepped down at a trans. pole) branch line to a new three phase 34.5kv circuit on FIBERGLASS ARMS!!!!!!!! I've taken a lot of interest in NSP / Xcel's 34.5 system since it was always the type that caught my attention, and I was hoping that this day would never come. NOT a single pole with wooden arms or braces in sight!

We've had quite a number of thunderstorms around here so far in early to mid June. While the weather is nice and warm out, it can often times leave surprises for ones after a storm. As of today five of my homemade poles have been damaged by tree branches falling into the lines. The storms didn't bring down any trees, only branches. I couldn't find any nearby tree branches that could have fallen on the lines, only found 2-3 ft long skinny twigs. Damage wasn't very bad, lines torn from poles, brac…

Well it seems that this Saturday I MIGHT be able to take a drive around to get some photos of Dunn Energy's distribution feeds out of a sub. If things go as planned, I might be able to go to one of their substations for some photos. I was promised to go there (only about 14-17 mins from my farm) three years ago but it never happend (too much to ask as it seemed). I might keep this as an active article to post recent safaris. But I'm very excited about it! 5/21/13~~ New trip coming soon... As…

Well it seems that spring is finally here! Some nice weather here in MN, nice enough to start work on my power lines again and also go on some line safaris. Seems that the only damage my power lines recieved in that Feb. 18-20th weather was the neutral wire coming off a pole, but nothing else seemed to be damaged. This year wasn't as bad unlike last year when my area still kept getting snow until early May.

Yesterday (2-20-14) here in MN we got a recently snow storm of 6-12 inches here. No damage to anything. We still have power, but a lot of cars were on the sides of roads or in ditches this morning. It seemed quite dubious that the ones in the ditches along I-94 would be free anytime soon. Random fact: February 18th was very fun and interesting day for me. It probably was because I got some new ideas for my power lines.

When I first started out building my poles with insulators I recently collected I strung a small thin steel wire to use as conductors. I thought it looked nice, when I came to check on my line I noticed weeks later the little steel lines were rusting, I didn't think much of it. When I thought about energizing my lines with power from a solar powered fence charger I thought that the original rusted steel wire wasn't going to do the job. So then I reconductored the line to a copper wire, It was…

One more day until I go to the Grand Canyon! All set with cameras and ready to go.

I plan to go the the Grand Canyon next Friday.

I have recently been noticing some crews from other areas have been going around and helping out Xcel after recent thunderstorms. Xcel says that there are 22 different companies from 14 other states helping them out. Today I saw a couple Ameren Illinois trucks in a Sears parking lot, along with some trailers. I also saw a couple Xcel trucks zipping by while traveling on the interstate.

I woke up today to find out I was experiencing my first power outage. Apparently there were a couple hundred people without power in my area, there were about 130,000 customers without power in the state according to Xcel Energy during the early hours of the after math of the storm. I heard lots of loud thunder, at some point so loud that I had to cover my ears, raining hard, and strong winds. People in Hudson, Wisconsin were also affected by the thunderstorms. I did not see any damage on the p…