What DFA reported
During a blind study, DFA detected one failing clamp 2,333 times over 21 days and summarized it as a single line on its report. For the first 19 days there was no conventional notice at all.
What the crew found
Then a group of customers had trouble four times in 40 hours: lights out, flickering, flickering, lights out. Crews answered each call the conventional way and struggled to find the root cause, replacing two pole-top transformers that were not faulty.
Why it matters
One clamp cost four trouble tickets, four truck rolls and two transformer replacements, mostly unnecessary and all on overtime, while a potential ignition source stayed on the line for three weeks.
Keep reading
44 warnings, then a line burned down
In a blind study DFA grouped 44 of a feeder's 178 faults as one tree contact. Nobody acted, and 23 months later the conductor broke.
A glowing substation switch, found within two hours
No calls, no SCADA alarm, normal meters. DFA reported series arcing, and a lineman found the failing switch before two days of storms.
Two blinks a day apart led to a charred crossarm beside a pine forest
Nobody lost power for more than a blink. DFA matched the two faults, and the crew found a conductor burning into its crossarm six spans from the prediction.