Vintage switchgear restored and installed to form part of my living room.

[Mark W]

Afternoon All

Some of you may be interested in one of my projects. I have nearly finished a themed room at my home and we have used some vintage switchgear as part of the decoration, I just need to finish off the skirting board. The next stage is to wire up the semaphores so that they operate when the breakers are operated. The black BTH 6.6kv breaker front was constructed in 1948 and was in service until May 2021. The main blue panel is from a 33kv outdoor substation that was decommissioned about 5 years ago and it has taken us this long to install, as proper work seems to get in the way.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy what we have done and that it is now safe from the scrap man!

Mark

 

[telectrix]

as
absolutely stunning. more words needed.... fantastic.

 

[marconi]

You star! Wonderful. Will you have a 100Hz hum in the background and the lovely smell of ozone high voltage electrical equipment produces? Didn't old electrical gear have timeless style as was as functionality.

PS: Are there any folk in Staffordshire suffering an as yet unexplained long term power outage?

 

[littlespark]

Bloody hell, that’s a lot of needles and dials!


@Lucien Nunes needs a look at this!

 

[marconi]

Bloody hell, that’s a lot of needles and dials!


@Lucien Nunes needs a look at this!

To be green with envy comes to mind

 

[cireland]

The coffee table made out of the insulators is a nice touch.
Awesome!

 

[JBW175]

Absolutely fantastic work, love it

 

[nicebutdim]

Wonder how my other half might react to something like this

 

[freddo]

Awesome work! Makes my little cast iron switchgear look quite pathetic!

 

[Mark W]

Thanks for the comments, I had a funny feeling some of you may like it.

So very quick description, this is from an outdoor 33kv substation that had external busbars/ocb's. It had both main and auxiliary bars to give maximum redundancy. The mimic panel on the top of the main panels shows the two incoming 132Kv circuits that shared the same overhead line to the substation, These are shown as the red symbols as these are also the 132/33 transformers. The rest of the board are the feeders going out to the various parts of the local network, these could be via a direct 33kv circuit or 11kv via a transformer. Almost every feeder was duplicated so you had a one and two. The mimic panel shows the main and aux bars, bus tie breakers, feeders plus the operation of any tap changer on the main incoming transformers. The larger of the semaphores show the operation of an OCB whilst the smaller semaphores show the status of any off load isolators in the external part of the Sub.

The grid transformer metering, this is from the CEGB and MEB days, this is where the bill was generated from the CEGB to the distributor MEB!

Both transformer protection panels are from the 132/33 transformers so this for your circuits for tripping.

The plain panel to the the left is the battery charger/batteries for the substation.

The green panel with gauges, this is a compressed air panel from a substation but not high pressure as found in an air blast. The old 132kv OCB's were spring open and air operated closed. Compressed air is a perfect stored energy source to operate the breaker in a blackout situation and meant a smaller battery back up was required so no large solenoids which would have had to be huge anyway to operate such a breaker. This gave numerous switching operations in a dead substation.

The knife switch and small item in series with it, this is an isolator and C.T from a centre tapped high voltage transformer to give earth fault indication. This would have also gone in series with a liquid neutral earthing. resistor. The output from the C.T went to a transformer protection panel.

As I get time I will post the other items we have and are restoring. I fully appreciate you wont believe me when I say I have a bulk oil 275kv breaker in the back garden, the same design as BTH/AEI that was displayed at the festival of Britain!

Cheers

Mark

 

[James]

It looks wonderful.
well done.

 

[timhoward]

Wow. That is epic. Brilliant idea, and brilliantly executed too.
The only question is - are you open for visitors if they bring you beer?

 

[DPG]

Love it, very impressive. I imagine your washing line is strung between 132kV pylons?

 

[Dustydazzler]

Looks like one of these really hip and trendy barber shops you see sometimes on YouTube or could be a Really cool coffee shop in New York or London

Awesome

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Excellent stuff. It is a pity that more people don't have this level of imagination with redundant gear. They only see copper $$$.
I have many questions but the overriding one is:
Q1. How did you get this past the interior design committee?
Actually that is a stunning achievement in its own right. I thought I was pushing the boundaries when I tabled the idea of a theatre lighting switchboard to control the lights.

No, wait, this is a trick. You've moved into a substation! Go on, let's see your 'garden!' It is air-insulated?

This is my one. It's not in my living room and it's not in such nice cosmetic condition, and doesn't have the protection relays and metering. To be set up at MEET as an exhibit and teaching aid. We also have a remote panel and telecontrol system to link it to the main panel.

 

[pirate]

Totally love that! Restore, reuse, repurpose... re-markable!
Fabulous!
Thank you for sharing this, and brightening up my day!

 

[littlespark]

All very well, but it takes a month of training, wearing PPE and a permit just to turn on the telly…..

 

[telectrix]

All very well, but it takes a month of training, wearing PPE and a permit just to turn on the telly…..

which telly is out of shot and a `1956 Baird 2 channel 405 line , all valve unit, the woodwork polished to a high shine. of course, with today's regulations, TV should be metal enclosure or enclosed in a non-combustible (metal) box .

 

[telectrix]

needs a youtube video making. it will go viral.

 

[Baddegg]

That is exactly how Ive always pictured @Lucien Nunes house
Great work though mate,

 

[Mark W]

Again, thanks for the feedback.

The comment about the washing line, I will do a separate post about that!. When I read it I thought you must live in the village, its not a pylon but 132Kv/27Kv related.

Lucien, good to hear from you. I had a funny feeling these pictures would flush you out!! That Eau de nil panel looks very, very nice................

In answer to your main question, my wife was actually involved with the layout and elements of the design this to include the fact I had to use green glitter grout between the black metro tiles and the flooring had to be reclaimed and look like one of the old attendant operated substations. The coffee table is supported by 25kv railway insulators. The main spark ball light fitting in the centre of the ceiling is my tribute to an off load 33kv isolator that was accidently opened on load, only the engineers involved will ever know the story!! The black and white cushions go with the the black and white indicator circles within the protection relays.

The panel has had no restoration, this is the condition it was removed.

The ironic thing is, there are no plug sockets in this room on purpose, we know it as the "electric room"

For everything else I will post separate subjects and there may be a few to brighten up the odd day, my current project is the restoration of a very rare 1936 6 cylinder National oil engine DC generator and all the switch gear, we have the main DC board plus we have 5 Brookhirst motor starters that were fed from this switchboard. We are giving it, its own room as a tribute to the pumping station it all came out of.

The washing line will get its own post, along with my own personal reasons for saving this lot.

If any of you get really excited by this stuff then the kettle will always be on if you want a visit, if we can find a socket!!

Mark

 

[telectrix]

Whereabout in Staffs. ?
North Staffs is close to me.
I got to see this face to face. what's your fav. beer?

 

[littlespark]

Doesn’t need any sockets….

Just bring the kettle within 5ft of it and it’ll boil through induction!


Crazy.
My wife would start on a “bringing junk home” speech and it wouldn’t get past the front door.

Although plastic construction toys don’t seem to be a problem….

 

[HappyHippyDad]

Struggling for words also..
It's beautiful.

 

[swaRRR]

Doesn’t need any sockets….

Just bring the kettle within 5ft of it and it’ll boil through induction!


Crazy.
My wife would start on a “bringing junk home” speech and it wouldn’t get past the front door.

Although plastic construction toys don’t seem to be a problem….

Sounds about right. I'm not allowed any toys but she can bring all manner of crap in for the kids to throw all about the place.

 

[pirate]

Plastic crap!
If I ever meet Mr Fisher or Mr Price, I'll beat the crap outta them!