Entertainment industry 400A powersafe connectors.
A look at some of the Powersafe powerlock-style connectors used for connecting high current supplies in the entertainment industry, temporary power industry and various industrial applications including factories and quarries. They allow suitably trained individuals to make a very fast high current connection easily and safely.
The Powerlock style connector replaced the older Camlock connector which was similar to a welding connector and had a very open construction with exposed live metal on both the plug and socket. The new style has fully shrouded connections, keying to avoid misconnection and a locking pin to prevent accidental detachment.
They can be terminated either using the set-screw clamping as shown, with various reducing sleeves for smaller cables, or a version is available that can be crimped on. Once assembled and mated they are well protected against ingress of water and dirt.
These connectors were generously supplied by Phase 3 connectors Ltd.
www.p3connectors.com
They are manufactured in the UK. (Which is reassuring to know.)
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It says so very obviously on the sticker, but maybe it's worth mentioning that they are designed to CARRY a huge load, but not to BREAK a huge load. If you disconnect these under load, you might draw an arc, and that might heavily injure you, kill you, or set you and the entire place on fire. At the very least it will scare you shitless :)
They should only be mated and parted off-load, but it's better to assume the worst. Particularly in an industry like the event industry which relies heavily on the Dunning Kruger effect.
I've actually seen it gone wrong once. I was working as a FoH engineer at a medium sized festival on a grasland in the middle of nowhere; we had a large container sized generator with a powerlock connection strip powering the whole terrain. The generator was in a cage within a cage, which should prevent even backstage people with tinkering with it. When the last band was on the last minutes of their show, suddenly a bright flash of light rendered the entire tent (and terrain for that matter) dark. While the whole crowd, band and security/bar staff was a bit startled, I suspected a faulty distribution box, picked up my flash light and went backstage. When I was near the generator cage, it started to smell specifically like burned meat at which point I yelled for security and went further into the generator cage to find a drunk festival goer with very severe burns all across his face and chest. At the generator, one of the powerlock phase connectors was dangling loose, pretty much completely melted away. It must've been a hell of an arc. Fast forward one year later; the lawsuit the insurance company started against the organizers of the festival ended in a not guilty on all demands on part of the organizers. The story was that the visitor told his friends too watch the lights flicker for a moment as he would jokingly unplug the "main power plug". He then went outside of the tent, half into the water that was next to the tent, made his way up to the backstage, climbed the backstage barriers, climbed the generator cage and tried to unplug one of the connectors on the generator. The insurance company thought that the organization didn't went out of their way to prevent drunk visitors from entering the generator cage. Luckily the judge was pretty clear; as impressive as the accomplishment was (seeing as plug puller was quite drunk), he really did this to himself and the organizers shouldn't be held responsible in any way, as their preventive measures should be well enough for any normal situation.
@@benedykt123313 It sounds like they may have gone a bit further than just pulling a connector.
@@bigclivedotcom Since the cause was "The story was that the visitor told his friends too watch the lights flicker for a moment as he would jokingly unplug the "main power plug"" you can bet that not only was there an initial arc from the disconnection, but probably another series of arcs as the guy tried reconnect it. (Or he could easily have been pulling it out partway and moving it about to try to create the flicker)...either way the arc propagated and taught him a valuable lesson.
benedykt123313 p
I worked for a sound and lighting company some years ago and we used the original Cam-Loc connectors. They were all clearly color coded to our US standard 120/208 phase colors (Black, Red, Blue, White neutral and Green Ground (earth)). I and one other were the only ones allowed to actually connect or disconnect the tails and feeders. Well, at the end of one show, the "new guy" stagehand decided to be "helpful" and start disconnecting the feeder. He had already done the Ground connector and had his hand on the neutral and was about to pull it when I saw him and screamed at him to stop. I ran across the venue and got into his face with such ferocity he told me later he feared for his life. My yelling attracted the attention of our boss who was at the truck helping with the load out. The "new guy" was fired on the spot. My boss then warned everyone on the crew that only himself, me and the other trained guy were to touch those feeders and tails. Anyone caught doing it would be fired and pay for any damage. At the shop later we had briefly discussed some sort of cage or other locking device to keep people away from the power, but we dealt with so many different venues with so many different power setups (most were fused disconnects, some I actually had to tie onto a dedicated breaker in a energized panel (luckily I am a fully qualified electrician, but still OSHA and Code prohibited what I was doing), there was one venue that I actually had to jam tails under the main lugs(!) and a very few had Cam-Loc line connectors installed in a panel or gutter. We decided that a cage-type lockout system would be too impractical to implement. This situation could have be been a lot worse....the dimmer racks were still connected and energized as was the power distro for all of my stage monitor equipment. (Luckily all the audio gear was already disconnected, I just had a worklight and fan still on.) Too many people in the entertainment technical industry lack proper knowledge or training in regards to the hazards involved with show power. I for one (and my boss after this incident) think that EVERY person on a show, from roadie to stagehand to lighting to sound and so on should have an ANNUAL training on electrical hazards, and be required to keep that training current (pun intended) to even be allowed to work on a show.
If I ask someone I don't really know to disconnect my cams I will always quiz them to be sure they understand. I might come off as a dick but it's worth it. Fake it until you make it is too common in this industry.
NinjaBoy and the Old Man Such training may encourage people to think they are qualified!
I agree should be more training for this more often as "fake it 'till you make it" is still alive and well. Thankfully with ETCP (Entertainment Technician Certification Program) gaining more traction it's starting to become a preferred thing on bigger shows. Still doesn't stop the small fry from, well, frying themselves.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 Typically that kinda training he mentions is more hazard awareness, aka scare you into not touching the things you've not qualified for. Typically works decently well as most people don't even realize the risks involved. I know from some power safety classes co-workers have taken they come away from it less wanting to do power hookup work as they now realize how dangerous it can be!
@pmailkeey Most circuit breakers are designed to be "trip-free" which means the even with a handle lock holding them in the on position, they will still trip under fault conditions. Not all equipment faults that start a fire will necessarily draw enough current to trip a properly rated breaker though. And some equipment (here in the US, particularly fire pumps) are deliberately powered in such a way that they will be allowed to operate to total failure, rather than trip a breaker or blow a fuse. (The logic with a fire pump is that far more danger exists if it stops due to simple overheating rather than allowing it to operate until the motor fails completely. Fire pumps are most always in a heavily fireproofed room so if the motor flames out, it won't add to the fire already burning in the building.) As for emergency shutoff of equipment with a locked-on breaker or disconnect, I have seen people use brute force to break the lockout (breaker handle lockouts tend to just prevent accidental turn-offs, but can easily be broken off) or destroy the lock on a disconnect. Others will simply dump the main to stop the emergency.
Most draughtspersons don't give much thought to how connectors like that are actually used. I've never encountered these particular connectors, but I did encounter Mil-C-26482 and Mil-C-38999 connectors many years ago, with similar problems (they're circular connectors with a coupling ring). When I was designing a replacement unit with those connectors, the draughtsperson spaced them too close together and didn't believe me when I said they ought to be further apart. So I took the draughtsperson to play with the original unit which also had the connectors too close together. And after he'd scraped his knuckles trying to mate and unmate connectors, I explained that the unit had seen a lot of use and the connectors mated a lot more easily now than when they were new. He got the point. The replacement unit had a more sensible spacing between the connectors. It's one of those things where you don't really understand the nature of the problem until you've played with it yourself: you have to leave ample finger clearance.
That’s why it’s important for there to be communications both up and down a chain. Nobody can know everything when they have never had those experiences, but the better the communication the more easily serviced and maintained. It’s likely the draftsperson only knew the manufacturer’s minimum spacing requirement and not the minimum practical spacing needed to actually facilitate servicing so that a worker could fully grasp and rotate the connector in a practical manner.
@@ethanpoole3443 You got it. With a square flange he'd have abutted two flanges. With a jam-nut mounting he'd have allowed just enough room for the spanner or nut spinner (one receptacle at a time, of course). He wasn't stupid or deliberately unhelpful, he'd just never used one of these things himself and didn't realize the need for finger clearance. Worse was the section leader above him. I designed some kit using Oxley cone-lock LEDs (push fit into a PTFE bushing). Our preferred way of putting holes in panels was with punches and these needed a hole that wasn't one of the sizes we'd standardized on, so he went for the nearest of our standard sizes (which was a tad too small). I became aware of his decision when the assembly people complained of problems. They had to take their most overweight employee and she'd almost lift herself off the ground pushing the LED home. I argued with the section leader about "designing to spec" and "QA manual" (this was on military kit so the QA manual was very big) and "that much force is going to bugger the reliability" with him but he wasn't having it. It was only after I persuaded him to try inserting one of these LEDs himself that he conceded we needed to purchase a punch of the correct size. He meant well, but there was more than a hint of the Dunning-Kruger about him.
@dothemathright 1111 Yeah, pushing the housing helps. But you need to be able to get a good grip to be able to push on the housing as you turn the coupling nut. You still need finger clearance. And a lot of clearance if the connectors have arctic coupling nuts for use by people wearing very thick gloves. Hmmm, I wonder if pushing the housing would have made these powersafe connectors easier to mate. Probably.
@@bdf2718 As someone never using these, I can't help wonder why powerloc didn't make the base plates large enough to ensure correct spacing, preventing design error.
@@johncrowerdoe5527 Because what's on the panel next to the connector might not protrude much (like an indicator), then a large base plate would mean wasted space.
I gotta say one of my favorite Big Clive topics is where you just gush about how much you like some particular professional electrical device like this, it's stuff I'll probably never get to see or work with and it's always very interesting.
Considering the risks of disconnecting under load, I'm surprised these don't have electromechanical interlocks, though I suppose it's one more part that could fail.
They're really only designed for suitably competent people to use. But sadly, some event company management are fundamentally egotistic DJs stuck at the bottom of the Dunning Kruger curve. They genuinely believe that if they send casual labour on a smattering of one day box-ticking courses that they instantly become fully experienced electrical experts.
The term is "Diane Kruger curve", by the way. I wouldn't chime in, but my level of expertise prohibits me from remaining silent.
+peetoons Actually it's the Freddy Krueger Curve
Some high end distro's do kinda have this. Sometimes there's a 400A or 250A breaker with a shunt that's connected to a variable RCD, and sometimes this is also connected to a phase indicator that can trip the shunt and therefor breaker if you loose a line or neutral. I think some digital meters can also be configured to do this. But as clive said - only competent people should be using them. In London, local crew will often respond with "we're not touching that" if they are asked to connect plock, and i make them right in doing so. It's the job of a spark, most competent person, or SPR on site.
Many years ago, I knew a fellow who worked for our power distribution company. He told me about a time when he was manning a small substation alone. He received a call from his boss with orders to pull a switch on a 27.6KV line. So, he went out and pulled the switch.... Not realizing at the time that it was passing about 200A. There was a bang... To him, it was more like an earth-shattering kaboom. And there were sparks... ...raining down on the long dry grass. So, after quickly recovering from the impact of the bang, he's running all over the yard, stamping out the grass fires. ... And the phone is ringing. He gets the fires out and answers the phone, and his boss has called to ask him if he got the switch pulled.
Big Clive, more entertaining than the entertainment industry. 👍 😁
Captain Clive...
I once did a site specific High Voltage course for the switching gear of the building I was working in and that’s something i remember the ground was always engaged first when connecting and last when disconnecting. He told us an interesting story about how the temporary ground lead for railway overhead power cables was to be connected and disconnected by one man only. This was because whilst working on an isolated stretch of track a worker in hurry disconnected the clamp from the track whilst his colleague was still climbing the ladder to take it off the overhead cable, a train went past on another line approximately 5 meters away and because of induction the magnetism generated from that train going past sent 5000 volts down the earth cable on the supposedly dead line.
Induction happens from adjacent cables even without a load. The earth clamps often draw a long arc on a cable that is isolated.
Some of the largest current carrying systems I have ever seen where from an MRI machine, it's nuts how large components get at huge power factors.
I've seen what happens on a split phase system when the neutral is lost... the results are "energetic"... :)
It can be quite entertaining if watched from a sufficient distance. I did a bit of contract work for Heathway in the 80's when they were changing over to induction furnaces for melting the quartz glass for fibre optic cables. There was a problem with a fork lift driving over a neutral wire and all hell broke loose. I'm not sure what voltage some of the kit ended up getting but it got hot enough to scorch concrete. Many changes of trousers needed and throat soothers for the safety guy and a manager from so much shouting afterwards. Somehow not a single injury not even a very minor one.
Have seen the floating neutral problem first hand at a speedway track in Australia, was the end of the night, and we turned off the track lights (about 100-150A of metal halide lighting per phase at 240V) and all the lights that were still on went haywire from the voltage fluctuations, even made fluro lights that hadn't turned on in years turn on again
I remember about half a dozen of us dragging around 5 core cables to a 500KVA generator. This sounds like a much better idea.
Thats where they are used Jim - Dead connecting and synching-on ac generators.
Forklift ?!
Always great to hear an experienced person describe these types of things! Thanks.
Back in the sixties when I was working TV studios the lighting was usually fed through a "composite lighting panel" and Luxtrol auto-transformer dimmers. The plugs used to patch lights into working groups were big single pin beasts with the pin being about the size of a fountain pen. Being in a studio, the cable runs onto the overhead racks was fairly permanent, and I don't remember the individual connectors for the lamps, but I think they were the normal heavy-duty three blade Hubbell twist-lock connectors. Looks as though the industry has advanced and improved a whole lot since then! Thanks for the walk-through!
It’s worth noting that the keying on them that differentiates the line connectors and neutral/earth is not linked to colour. In Australia we still use green for earth, but use black for neutral, red for L1, white for L2 and blue for L3. These will mate with EU coloured connectors, so brown to red, black to white, grey to blue etc.
The broadcsting company I work for in Germany uses brown, black, grey for the phases and blue for neutral and green for PE. That reassembles the standard here.
Ive been watching big clive for a few years, Never would i have though he'd save my ass. Struggled to get these disconnected from a generator today and here he was my hero telling me how! Thanks clive!
You forgot to mention that with the shuttered panel source connectors, that it also locks the previous connector. So you connect the earth, and it opens the neutral shutter, when you connect the neutral it not only opens the L1 shutter, but also locks the earth, then when you connect L1, it opens the L2 shutter and locks the neutral connector and so on.
Speaking from the states where we use a similar connector (camlok), only some of the panel connectors lock the order of connection/disconnection. The ones he has in the video definitely don't do that, as the phases need to be mechanically connected.
Wow! The PowerSafe connectors are very well designed. Excellent.
I have to use these connectors at a lanparty where i'm one of two people responsible for the electrical infrastructure. The 350kVA generator we rent rarely has the option to connect Powerlock sets, it's still just nuts and bolts on the generator side but on the other side they make our job so much easier. After 9 years i sometimes still have to think about which one is "male" and which one is "female". We have multiple release keys but i've got to admit, i've used screwdrivers to unlock these connectors before.
Some of the kit I work on is the exact opposite end of the spectrum to the point of calling a 4-20mA loop high current. The most ridiculous so far was an electrometer (ultra low current ammeter) working in the fA range. Johnson Nyquist noise and Schott noise start being a real git at that sort of current as does electron bunching. To put it in perspective you are talking about the order of 10,000 electrons per second. 1A is about 6 billion billion electrons per second. Nothing wants to work as a connector that low as it's way below normal wetting currents, and you just cant use mercury any more. It's a miracle I'm not bald from pulling my hair out. Everyone else took one look at the spec and said "sod that" for designing it and the techs couldn't build it so I had to. Ceramic PCB (to reduce capacitance and leakage) guard rings the whole works.
Mercury wetted contacts were amazing. At the levels you're talking it would almost be worth having an amplifier right next to the point of measurement before it even hits a connector.
At such a very low "current" you'd be in the range of quantum uncertainty as well as junction / thermionic effects affecting signal. Did you calculate current via statistical processing (to reduce quantum error) or did you "try to measure and hope for the best"?? I know the more sensitive FETs can amplify gate currents down to the bottom of the picoamp range, but femtoamps must be a real hoot to "try" to measure with any accuracy! :-)
@@phils4634 believe it or not Analog Devices were making op-amps with fA biasing way back. There was an electrometer working in the sub pA range in Analogue Dialogue in the 90's. That's where I got my basic idea from. You don't really need statistical processing till you get down to kA ranges. If anyone wants me to design a meter for that - I'll be somewhere else a long way away. I know it can be done as CERN uses them but all you have to do is walk past 5 meters away and it skews the reading.
@@bigclivedotcom that is the best way of doing it but not always practical and can be prohibitively expensive. Basically military grade AD8502 cooled to -75C and selected for minimum bias current. That was a game. Using components 20C colder than they are specified for and selected for minimum bias current. The theoretical resolution was about 0.02fA but in reality nothing like that good. Plus there was the issue of cooling - they were attached to a very large (relatively speaking) lump of aluminium and a whole stack of heat pumps cooled them down (10 if I remember correctly). The only problem is you could only get an accurate measurement with the cooling off and with a 100C temp difference to the room they warmed up too much in less than 5 minutes even with the aluminium working as a heat sink. CERN uses all sorts of tricks including resistors cooled with liquid helium etc. That makes a huge difference to Johnson Nyquist noise etc but not exactly for the home gamer.
@@gordonlawrence4749 fascinating. Plz make a KZhead channel, or have you done that already? Most measurement of current is done by passing the current through a resistor to derive a voltage, then measure that. The simple fact is that the resistor placed in circuit reduces the current that was there before it was interposed. It's a bit like Heisenberg at macro scale, can you measure without changing the thing you're measuring?
Wonderful. Most of us will never have an opportunity to see these in person, and would never have even suspected their existence except for your video.
Thank you for making these videos. I otherwise would never be exposed to this kind of information, and my knowledge of electricity would be completely limited to domestic supplies I am familiar with. This is very interesting and educational, and I really appreciate the time you take to put these videos together.
Being someone who has dragged around 95mm sq. five core rubber insulated flexible with Marschall connectors on the end all I can say is Wow!. These connectors look fantastic, and you wouldn't need a forklift to pull the extension lead over the ground :-)
This would be perfect for that amplifier I bought from Marty McFly.
Hey, at 400 amps it's just enough for my app. You need another connector for the car.
Rock and roll.
The camlock style connectors are still basically the universal standard in the US still. Most rental generators, fairs and circuses, and the entertainment industry still uses them. I wouldn't be surprised to see big studios use these powersafe sometimes but the camlock still rules.
I'll miss Tweco...
3:50, they also can be found sittin in puddles under a a massive stage while it buckets down rain around it.
So true! or next to the generator in the mud.
This is a very professional product, powerlock, which my clients are using now.
Very informative, thanks! High current arcs, for those who haven't experienced them, are SCARY. They're nothing like the cute high voltage arcs you may have seen or experienced. High current arcs have a lot more low frequency and explosive loudness to their sound, which will absolutely scare the s**t out of an unprepared person. And like others have said, under a high load, it would take far less than a second of arcing to melt/destroy the connector contacts. It should be possible to pull it away and break the arc but.. yeah just don't do it. Single phase connectors are convenient for clamp meters, so you can quickly see if the line is loaded. No excuse. :)
Sadly I recently missed all the fun. We recently had a tree come down and land on the cable tv and needed to get the Road open, the Power Company eventually came (dealing with a major ice storm in the area that they're completely not used to ice ) and gave us a hard time and we're very impolite an hour later with 4 more came down. After the comments made and about working with the lines off and the fire department saying you absolutely need the power company and we already called them for you. We waited and waited for them with our lights on only to find out by the end of the day we weren't in the system. The next afternoon the tree trimming people (subcontract / split company) showed up they pulled the line down cut the tree off and release the line and let it spring back up and from what my neighbor tells me caused a giant White Flame!!!!! they quickly made sure their colleagues on the other side where okay cleared the trees and disappeared probably to clean their pants. Did they assume the power was off, did they not check that the power was off, where they told that the power was, off because it wasn't and while most of our lines are insulated in this weird section that has insulated lines there is a bare wire that goes from HV line to the Transformer which shorted to ground / neutral. So now we don't have power our neighborhood is primarily electric everything and the half a street that's out feeds the community well for the whole development not to mention the two elderly Neighbors we threw some logs on our fire but they couldn't and it's kind of hard to run an oxygen machine. Oh no problem will be on by 8pm at 10pm they updated that to 11pm the next day which is when I was like i'm definitely posting to Facebook. they showed up at 8 am the next morning and had it fixed by 8:20 by qualified Personnel this time too bad they had to take time out just for us with all their other storm issues. and oh yeah what was that about working with the power on... that one of your personal very grumpily told me...
@@imark7777777 Ice storms happen here in eastern Canada from time to time as well, but we've been lucky so far this winter. When it comes to your story, I'm just happy that no lives were lost. When working with high voltage lines, even when the lines are insulated, extreme care must be taken. Insulation can and does crack, water can seep in, rust, salts, oxides can cause their exterior to become electrified. We had a major power outage last summer where most of the city was without power, and I was running around taking photos in the dark while monitoring ambulance radio transmissions for the lack of anything better to do, and the number of elderly people who had critical medical equipment (like oxygen machines you've mentioned) without power was scary. Our ambulance service, embarrassingly, ran out of backup power for its radio system after a few hours and.. medics had to be called on their phones. That whole thing just made me realize how dependent people are on electricity and how many holes our infrastructure still has.
Living in South London I see low Voltage high current arcs from time to time, albeit d.c. ones, on railway conductor rails. I also once saw somebody throw an old bicycle onto the tracks over a bridge parapet; the resulting arc burned away what would have been several kg of the conductor rail. This was at the time when Eurostar trains were running to their original terminal at Waterloo station, using low Voltage d.c. power, and new trains were being introduced on suburban services. I remember reading a magazine article at the time which said that a 12 car (three 4-car units) drew a higher maximum current than the 20-car Eurostar due to the need for higher acceleration with frequent stops. I think the figures were 4600 A for the Eurostar and 6100 A for the suburban train. Goodness knows what the fault currents would be. If passengers need to be taken off a train and walked along the track the traction current is turned off and short circuiting bars applied to the conductor rails at each end of the train. In an extreme emergency a short circuiting bar can be applied to a live conductor rail as a means to discharge traction current. Ok, this is making a circuit, not breaking it and the instructions say that it should be done sharply to reduce arcing, but I wouldn’t want to do it.
the only time I ever had to deal with these directly, was to wire in a temporary generator at a hospital due to an intermittent generator failure issue. It fine until we realised we had to hoist up 18 120mm cable runs (4/ph 4/neutral 2/earth) up 2 floors (switch room on the first floor, generator on the basement level). What was a little frustrating was the next day the company that was looking to fix the generator decided to bring in a load bank, and as such another 18 runs of 120mm had to be hoisted up 2 floors! Luckily the temporary generator connections to the ACB were suitably far away from the main generator connections that we could actually connect the load bank at the same time! (a couple of hours trying to work out how it all could be connected up at the same time was required at this point mind you!)
Thank you for more insight to devices and safety in the trade. However, watching the spring action I was reminded of a video from a while back captioned "Should I stick this electrode up...." Cheers.
I worked for an electricity supply company and these were fitted to the temporary generators to keep customers on supply during an outage or fault. They saved a lot of work as it is a lot easier to pull out five lengths of cable rather than one multicored cable, the rubber coating on the cable doesn't help and they were in fifty meter lengths. The only problem with them was when the European phase colours came in, all the ends had to be changed. The brown and red coloued connectors will mate but all the rest are different. Let's hope when brexit kicks in we can go back to red, yellow and blue phase colours. Well, they are the primary colours and a lot easier to see in the dark. By the way, which ever manufacturer supplied our connectors used the term male and female for the connectors. But maybe in todays climate that would be sexiest.!! Keep up the good work.
The biggest issue with male/female is do you name it by the housing or contact? It's not uncommon to have connectors made with male housings and female contacts or vise versa.
When I was doing stage work, we used completely deadly Cam-Loks and we LIKED it that way! XD
Phase 3 are such a lovely company. Best powerlocks, best soca just lovely.
I remember when these came out as a replacement to the Cam-Lok connectors, No keying or shrouding on those and they had mini ones for 150A right up to 690A! The Powerlocks come in a 600A version too.
These remind me of some connectors that someone produced while we were building a Robotwars robot. We needed something high-current that would not disconnect by accident. The connectors in question had a groove in the male pin with a loose sleeve in it. The female socket had fingers like the connectors in the video and a spring clip that locked hard into the groove. You could hang a fat bloke on the 6mm size. we did. To release you pushed the pin in a bit further, the spring clip rode up onto the loose sleeve, and then as you pulled it out the spring clip could ride over the gap as the sleeve slid back. Very neat, very reliable, and I have never seen them since, or worked out what they were intended for.
My only complaint is it is almost impossible to do a polarity check and phase rotation on the connectors before you plug them in without an adapter of some sort. We've made 5 colour coded break out boxes for doing it when needed. For context, we use them to hook some fairly dumb generators into already energised systems/networks. As for the tight spots, i've used one of those old lady jar openers with the rubber strap. Made of plastic and rubber and has come in quite handy in various places where you need rotational force but have no room and don't really want to try and jam vice grips into.
Yeah, having a set of full size adaptors takes up a lot of space in your test kit.
Don't knock the old lady jar openers! They've helped this arthritic old lady a lot over years from things as diverse as (gasp!) opening jars to screwing together cat scratching trees.
I will agree, without access to a point where you can plug in, phase rotation can be a bit of a PITA. I work in telecommunications, and inevitably, our HVAC equipment is typically clockwise rotation on the three phase stuff and the local power utilities, for whatever reason, either supplies counterclockwise from the grid or two adjacent utilities are opposite each other so if it's been a while, you can never remember which they supply and have to test each and every time.
@@nicolek4076 me too! Old man rather than lady.... Full disclosure and all that. But the big jar of gherkins defeated that ingeniously simple device. Blasted the lid with a blow lamp for a few seconds to expand the metal. Just wanted to pass on the tip if you find a lid too stubborn for the rubber strap thingy.
Good distro's have phase indicators pre main breaker so you can see if they are wired in the wrong rotation.
"Source" and "Drain" just makes so much more logical sense that it's a small wonder they picked that over "Feed" and "Load".
Im going to love this channel!! So glad I found it! I’m so far in indy entertainment lighting land that it’ll be a long time before I see these connections so this was really cool!
Just finished watching your live broadcast from a few weeks ago, glad to see you’re back home. I know I ask this all the time but any chance of a camera tour of your workstation? Really interested to see more of what what’s around the camera :)
Somewhere around here maybe on a different channel it was mentioned that US people are crazy for using individual phase lines with Cam locks, well this is just a safer version. and I am so glad to hear that you have a similar safer product because it makes so much sense with individual phase runs on higher current. Plus to be able to Loop in and out of things is amazing, you also don't necessarily have issues with getting the wrong ends it always sets up a one-way Direction unless you run into the weird standard of reversed ground in the US on some camlock systems.
How things have changed. In 1956 when I worked at a steel mill, we connected 3-phase, 440-volt lines to annealing ovens with open lugs, studs and nuts.
For a permanent supply that's fine. If you were moving the equipment around these would be a better option.
@@bigclivedotcom The oven lid was taken off for every heat then the steel exchanged then oven lid back on. Disconnecting and reconnecting about every 8 hours. Modern connectors did not exist in 1956.
@@jazbell7 Ah. That would have been tedious.
Having worked as a youngster in an old electrical wholesalers I remember the old swa cables. That stuff was a nightmare to terminate and just as bad to cut a section. I don't envy you.
When I was looking at tidal energy (in the Pentland Firth) for a previous employer we were looking at Wetmate connectors that you could connect a 1 MW generator underwater to an underwater substation. Very common in oil and gas and the really clever units are rated for deep deep water.
I love these Powerlock Connectors. I'm an german electrician and i often build up the electrical infrastructure at Events. At one Event, 5 Generators (each 500kVA) were hardwired together, because these are working synchronized in parallel, but only 3 of them were needed switched on at the same time. The other two were for safety if one or more of the others failed. After a large Fuse enclosure many Powerlock Connectors were used to route the Power with four 150mm² for L1, L2, L3, N and one 120mm² for PE Powerlock Cables to different Locations of the Event-Hall. At the End-Points Powerlock Distribution boxes were used to provide 400V 3-phase CEE-sockets with 16Amps, 32Amps, 63Amps, 125Amps and a bunch of normal 230V Protective contact sockets. These Powerlock Distribution boxes can be equipped and look different. As an example look at this link: www.distro-direct.com/images/large//thermolene__verteiler_typ59__29553.jpg To simplify the Powerhandling of the CEE sockets we say: 16A = 10KW, 32A = 20KW, 63A = 40KW, 125A = 80KW These Wire end ferrules are only used to protect the fine wires against cutting when tighten the allen screws. If you connect a Finely stranded cable without a Ferrule, the connection screws twist and cut into the fine wires. In this way a Cross-section reduction occurs. As a result, the maximum possible transmittable current is reduced. If more electricity is transmitted, this can cause heating and a cable fire at this point.
I'm studying mechanical engineering and one of my inspirations is you. It's hard sometimes because you have to do serious equations but i think it is still worth it!
Hard equations save lives... keep at it and remember a factor of safety is your friend.
The equations will all suddenly fall into place when you need to use them. It makes more sense when you use them in a real world application.
Hard equations make your head hurt too.
@@simontay4851 Engineers heads hurt so that things don't break and hurt people.
Great video Clive, I’m a large scale electrical distribution engineer and these connectors are also commonly used when running temporary cables for loadbanking of UPS or Generator systems, whether for commissioning or preventative maintenance.
I agree, it is a very nice description. Where I work, we use the 660 A version to test UPS up to 3000 kVA per unit (we put several 240 mm2 cables in parallel to sustain total currents per phase close to 4000 A). Never had any failure of these connectors.
Gil Wyckmans , I agree, I have used these for years never heard of a failure. Heard of many failures from loose life or poor connections where these aren’t used. Installing temporary loadbanks or generator sets would be a lot harder without these. We manufacture switchgear and have even had these fixed inside a cubicle of a UPS Output Switchboard ready for connecting a temporary loadbank during the UPS maintenance
I worked on some extremely low voltage high current systems in the 80's which used -2.2V @2000A (ECL logic rack for a large minicomputer). They had the biggest eyelet crimps I had ever seen with 4 M10 bolt holes. I take it now there are some more sensible solutions?
Never seen one of these before. Really good to see.
Those look pretty solid Clive can make anything fascinating!
Oh, dear! Clive's been bought out by Big Power Connector!
with your stressing of the importance of connecting them in the right order i figured it would have been counter-intuitive or something but it was indeed the way that made the most sense
thank you for detailing the mating rituals of the British electrical connector. David Attenborough missed.
fascinating stuff - I really enjoy this back of house stuff.
I would have thought the connection sequence was just common sense to any electrical person. But they do look like a nice robust connector.
The snag is that most entertainment industry electricians have no formal education in electrical theory. It's all picked up by word of mouth including the dangerous bits like disconnecting earths to get rid of speaker hum or bypassing RCDs/GFIs.
But common sense is becoming more and more rare.
@@gordonlawrence4749 sadly that's true i have had so many times to headdesk because of the lack of this.
@@gordonlawrence4749 Worse still, some companies are sending their labour on smattering of one day courses to make it look like they're electrically skilled. Write a cheque to the "inspection council", put their stickers on the vans and bingo. The illusion is complete, and you can use the same low wage casual labour to undercut real electrical companies for work that should only really be done by people who are genuinely electrically competent.
Thanks for the cool informative video Clive
Another great video Clive 👍
Got a bad back from dragging these things through forests , beaches and mountains for many years ,much better that 125 3phase though, also came back one morning to find the tails stolen and about 20 metres of a set hacksawed off at the studio door
I've always connected and disconnected in that order. Working on live equipment for years I figured this one out myself and it's actually how it should be done.
Very interesting as always. 👍 I was a little surprised that there's no type of dielectric grease/compound applied to the mated cable and fitting contacting surfaces before the two are mated and the hex screws are tightened. I would have thought that they would use this for both anti corrosion and to prevent galvanic oxidation. No?!? 😮
Awesome video! Thank you Clive!
We use them in the electricity distribution industry on our low voltage portable generators, and yes loosing the neutral gets very expensive very quickly.
Amazing review as always, thank you :-)
Love this one Mr Clive Sir
The whole connect in order thing is more of a concern if you aren't using Lockout Tagout. They are also not designed to break full load. The only thing that breaks full load is a arc suppressing switch. SF6 filled contacts if I recall correctly.
this has totally triggered my 'Shiny-Kit Syndrome'....just when I thought I was cured too. Thanks for that Clive! ;)
Big Clive... the David Attenborough of power systems.
Next in line from the powerloks: Socapex that is multicore for lighting coming from dimmerpacks and they fan out to each lamp that needs a dimmer (old tech that is going away), SpeakOn connectors come from amps and go to speakers.. XLR, 3 pin for audio and low bandwidth digital such as lighting control signal DMX that uses 5 pin version. BNC is for analog and digital video, also wireless antennas use them. And that is about all of the locking (=proper) connectors used in the "Biz" ("jack" patch cables don't count). Fibre has it's own stuff in XLR chassis size or more custom for the job, RJ45 is also stuffed inside a XLR type barrel, those are more and more used as they are just so bloody neat and tend to just work.
Socapex is a long way from going away 😅 It’s used for a LOT more than just dimmed power in lighting rigs
As I understand it socapex is often used even with intelligent lighting and non-lighting loads. I believe the reason for this is to keep the breakers at a central location rather than scattered all over the place in 32A 3P to 6x16A 1P distribution boxes.
Unplugging the neutral with a phase imbalance at 400 amps could be really exciting. Or a little bit of earth leakage...
Screw that, swap two phases and force a generator to sync to the grid. Seeing the results of a nice chunky generator hard-sync is impressive.
"earth leakage" aka shitting oneself :P?
@@laptop006 I have a colleague who accidently did that, the grid won haha!
@@intelmacs hum, tasty generator bits after that
@@monad_tcp it actually survived believe it or not. The generator had automatic synchronisation equipment which needed a blue phase reference from the grid. This was provided by a 4mm banana plug in a low voltage panel, however this was wired in reverse. So instead of the grid being referenced, the generator referenced the panel it was feeding and therefore tricked itself into thinking it was synchronised. When my colleague closed the isolators to sync onto the grid bus (a big copper knife switch essentially) molten copper started flying and the genset tripped out. Thankfully we are required to wear full arc flash PPE so nobody was hurt.
This is far from my area of expertise but fascinating. I can't imagine 455 Amps at 1000 Volts. WOW!
Had a generator guy connect my neutral to the wrong supply in a vineyard. Blew up 80% of our B-rig that day. Fortunately the led gear survived, but vari-lite made a fortune selling us new ballasts that weekend!
If it was VariLite movers then changing the ballasts isn't fun either.
@@bigclivedotcom ohyes! Our 90 minute load in in the next city was 10 hours..!
@@elliotsamuel I was so glad to swap the VL3000s for PRG Best Boys. Changing a ballast on a 3000 required significant disassembly. The Best Boy ballast slides out as a module from the side and if desired the main processor for the light slides out from the other side. Sophisticated lights, but designed for maintenance.
@@bigclivedotcom oh, I think I wet myself the first time I saw a bad boy, and subsequently best boy. Working with them was even better!
@@elliotsamuel You can tell that the people who designed them have worked in the industry for a while.
Coiling these up in cold weather is probably a treat! I'm used to Speakon, those can be bad enough.
The rubber has a different characteristic to the lower current PVC cables. Much nicer to work with in cold weather.
DLO is what we generally use for a connector like this. The jacket is extremely rugged and waterproof. It's also got the alternative name of locomotive cable. It's pretty flexible, I wish it was cheaper and allowed in more places.
These connectors were the source of a lot of the repairs I got when I was working for a production company. Someone disconnects the neutral and everything gets 400v.
Given the not so vast amount of stage work I've done, I've never seen these before. But should I work backstage again I'll be watching this video again.
They tend to be installed by the main crew when they fit out the power distribution racks. The bulk of the wiring you're likely to see is the multicores and single circuit rubber cables.
@@bigclivedotcom That'll explain why I can't remember seeing them. I miss packing up everything at the end of the night, so much fun.
Thanks Clive. You would think that hooking them up in the correct order would be intuitive for most folks. And if they had power on them, I would not touch them.
used to lug around 3 wire 400 MCM cable terminated on an "elephant foot" connector. Used this to connect shore power on US NAvy ships. We had a "tiger team" of folks to move that cabel around. Later I used "Camlock" connectors on 400 MCM single conductor locomotive cabel to make tep feeds to all sorts of things in the shipyards in Virginia. Your connectors are definately safer but not as robust as the Camlock stuff.
Google suggests about £400 for a set. Not your average connector.
In the industries involved it's worth the cost for the time it saves and reliability. The sets of pre-terminated tails cost thousands.
try these: www.neutrik.com/en/neutrik/products/powercon/powercon-true1/powercon-true1-cable-connectors
@@SupremeRuleroftheWorld 400A vs 20A...
> Google suggests about £400 for a set. Not your average connector. Yeah, but the ones on Aliexpress for £2.68 are almost as good ;-)
@@andrewkieran8942 £2.68 400 Amp connectors?
Great video. Worth noting don't mix makes. Power lock connectors are damaged by Lewden connectors for example.
Hey Clive, have you looked at aviation lights, LED's in particular? I recently watched a YT video about them; very interesting.
Certainly seems like the perfect companion for a Big Boy's Power Supply... :D
Great for jump leads for your Car :-D lol. I have used similar things in off shore electrical installations, using EX ATEX stainless Steel connectors for CCTV & Power, They are very heavy, well made, expensive connectors. Not as high current as these ones, but higher quality. £100's for each connector. Great Video.
I remember these being used at some point at my university. They had to do some maintenance on the grid, but keep the university power on. They injected power into the building whilst cutting the supply from the grid. All 2500 students noticed absolutely nothing.
Very intriguing Big Clive
Clive!! You Crazy Genius!! OK, on to the video.
Interesting connector Thanks for sharing😀👍
As allways BigC, thanks for the great vid
I'd love to see a video of the smaller variant of those, I've seen people use those kind of safe plugs to replace power tools plugs, and only rely only on 1 extension cable, since those can't disengage by yanking on the cable
I work as a subsea/marine injection moulder, ship to shore and Rig to Ship Umbilicals can have these or proprietary type connectors (my company makes them) for power transfer. They're also used on some high tech HV Boomer cables for providing a known sonar source.
I worked at a fairly big film lighting rental company and worked with these, you're right about the cables being heavy having to coil them up was always a ball ache, I'm sure I remember some being aluminium core. Only time I worked with them was when we ran the 600A jenny truck to about 550A in the car park just to check it was running alright
Lets just say that LED film lighting is one of the best things that happened.
@@bigclivedotcom RIP warm incandescent light
@@JGnLAU8OAWF6 The studios tended to favour discharge lighting. The new panels are capable of a wide range of whites by mixing cold and warm LEDs with broad spectrum phosphors.
That's a scary amount of power you're Talkin about!!
Best electrician/youtuber
I'm unfamiliar with neutral in a 3-phase system, although mostly i deal with US industrial distribution; our site, each phase is ~277 phase to ground, and 480 phase to phase. Nothing portable we have needs 450 amps, so we use 4 conductor cable for most of our 3-phase pigtails. On the boat, I'm not actually sure what our amperage was but we used three shore power cables about a hand's breadth in diameter, with connectors about the size of a floodlight can. Those were a joy to handle.
Really great video!
From milliamps to mega amps , I love this guy....but holy crap I want to buy a pair just to hang of my bench with some cable coming out of the wall to make people ask questions...lol
We use Cooper Cam-Lok connectors to connect larger generators to communications sites Incase the onsite generator fails. They are similar I have to say those look better! Safety rules for my company said you can never use the connectors live and must always connect in order ground neural and the two canter tapped legs of the 120/240v single phase service. We didn’t use 3 phase at any of our sites. For that matter a typical site would only need 40 or 50 amps but they typically had a 100 or 200 amp service so they picked a connector that could handle it. I must say I like it better then the large 100 amp multi wire connector for the same reason it was stupid heavy by the time we had 2 gauge 4 conductor SOOW cable with the connectors 30-50ft long it weighed around 70 pounds! That and the big connector won’t fit through chain link fence which is important at a few of the sites because their isn’t room for the generator inside the fence!
Very nice show & tell.
Nice video Use these frequently on the load banks I build.
Working at a generator supplier I see these all day. We use these on a contract with UKPN who weirdly specify the male as the source and and female as the drain. The 650kva generator sets we've got use the 660A Powerlocks with 240mm cable... That stuff's always fun to move around. I've also got one of the elusive unlocking tools, as you say, they've like rocking horse poop.
I wonder why they specify the connectors the other way round. Possibly just the way they started using them.
@@bigclivedotcom Seems that substations, dummy fuses and overhead line connectors they use are set up to accept the male powerlock, obviously it's beyond me why that choice was made in the first place. This can cause confusion with our engineers as festivals we supply setup the "right way". www.google.com/search?biw=1360&bih=625&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ZLZ8XKTYLPCF1fAP1pSEgAQ&q=powerlock+dummy+fuse+holder&oq=powerlock+dummy+fuse+holder&gs_l=img.3...27738.34727..34927...1.0..0.49.1207.28....2..1....1..gws-wiz-img.......35i39j0i67j0j0i10j0i30j0i24j0i10i24.G9WHTRfv3cs#imgrc=1bRvnsHbjZD3YM:
Just seen these being used IRL, had a power outage recently because of what I assume maintenance at the substation so the power company brought over a huge truck sized generator and tried powering the whole neighbourhood of it. Using massive powersafe connectors of course.
It's like the Ceeform and the Powercon in one!
There is a special place in hell for hire companies who tape powerlock cables into a loom... First thing that happens on a tour is me cutting the LX tape off the loom! lol.
Unfortunately there's some batty regulation which specifies they must be grouped as a loom in some instances.
@@bigclivedotcom Every day is a school day, as they say!
Intresting video clive thanks
Nice. Made in UK. Also they are cheaper than expected. 100 pounds for a set of 5 lines of source plugs, 100 for a set of 5 lines of drain plugs. The panel ones are about 45% more expansions. The 800A ones. What Clive has on bench is just 70 pounds total. (These are the 500A ones). Not bad for professional connectors. They are ip67 rated, but they also have silver contacts, so I would be careful with that. But they are rated for 500+ cycles. Interlocking panels are more expensive, at about 700 pounds for one panel with 5 drains or sources. But still not bad.
Always connect the ground (yeah I'm an American) first. It is literally the the first thing I ever learned about mains wiring. Now the floating neutral, I learned that one the hard way. Ouch.