I have a small Lego town built. I want to add power lines. However, I don't know how to route the power lines through the neighborhood. Should I create one line that snakes between all the houses? More than one line that take separate routes? Why do utility poles have so many lines on them in real life? Thanks!
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1Do those lines actually provide electricity for the LEGO houses, or does it only have to look good? In the latter case, I would go outside and look at the poles and power lines and how they are connected to each other and to the houses. One snake line sounds unlikely, because in case of damage the whole neighbourhood would be without electricity. You could claim that your LEGO city is somewhere in Germany with all cables underground :)– MetalbeardCommented Jan 22, 2018 at 12:38
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I would have to walk around the whole neighborhood without any idea of where I am going, which would take forever. Also, SimCity experience doesn't help since you just need to build houses adjacent to each other to draw power. Google is not much of a help so far either: google.com/…:– posfan12Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 15:33
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Mostly they just need to look good.– posfan12Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 15:46
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1In that case I would probably build a larger line with utility poles carrying 4 lines along the main road. From that main line, poles with one or two lines branch out into the side streets. Later, when the overall impression is good, you can worry about the details (like what happens at the end of a line, and so on).– MetalbeardCommented Jan 22, 2018 at 20:16
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1Judging by the Wikipedia entry for "Utility pole" I would say that you can do whatever you want. There are many different types of poles, carrying all sorts of cables (electricity, telephone, TV, ...). There are transformers, street lights and other things attached to them. Only avoid the snake line. In a LEGO town, less might be more, I guess the poles and cables are not the main attraction of your build.– MetalbeardCommented Jan 23, 2018 at 10:03
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1 Answer
As seen on your question about angles generally the connection from the power line to the house goes via either a Distribution Transformer (the grey cylinders in your image) where the power lines are run at a much higher voltage than domestic use and then either down the pole, into the ground for local delivery to the house or directly to the house.
In terms of how many lines and paths - I'd start from your primary sub-station where the main power lines come in and radiate out from there - initially with four lines, and then stepping down to two about half-way to two thirds out - effectively the lines are running in parallel, with each house drawing off their usage as it goes, so you'll see some drop off.
Depending on the final scale, more than four lines might look cluttered, whereas two will convey the impression of power nicely even if it's not physically accurate (a nice compromise might be three, with the third line running on top of the poles).
answered Jan 23, 2018 at 11:00
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I was worried that there might be a requirement that all poles have 4 lines. For instance, hot, hot, hot and neutral. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power– posfan12Commented Jan 24, 2018 at 5:08
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There are many examples of power lines with three, depends on what is being delivered I guess. Commented Jan 24, 2018 at 8:20