Manual and Motor Operators

Manual Operators

Two common types of manual operators are offered by Southern States, the manual swing handle operator and the manual gear operator.  Unless customer specified, Southern States selects the manual operator based on the switch break type, kV rating, continuous current rating, accessories (such as whip type arcing horns, load break/loop break/line drop interrupters, etc.), mounting position, mounting height, and other factors.  Southern States 30:1 ratio high efficiency gear operator, the type HOGO (an acronym for High Output Gear Operator), is very popular among customers, even for non-Southern States switches. For an EHV switch (500 kV and above) the heavy duty gear operators, type SG-20 and type SG-50, are the best fit, producing 20,000 inch-pounds and 50,000 inch-pounds of output torque, respectively.

Motor Operators

Southern States motor operators offer the ability to perform automated switching both at the substation and from a control center.  A wide variety of output torques and operating speeds are available to cover the many different switch types and ratings from Southern States and other other switch manufacturers.  An equally large variety of accessories, both standard and optional, are available for these motor operators, and many different voltages, both AC (115 VAC, 230 VAC, and others) and DC (24 VDC, 48 VDC, 125 VDC, 250 VDC) are available.  Like its manual counterpart the HOGO gear operator, the Southern States type VM-1 and type VM-1SE motor operators are both commonly supplied to other switch manufacturers to drive their switches as well as being supplied into the after market to automate existing switches, both present and past.