Milwaukee has come out with a new USB-rechargeable utility hot stick light, 2119-22.
Before we get into the finer details, let’s talk about hot sticks. A hot stick is an insulated pole, usually fiberglass, that is used by power utility workers to work on electrically-energized line components.
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Talking to Benjamen, and then watching a very insightful video demo on YouTube (embedded below), I learned about what’s going on in the above product image – it shows a hot stick being used to replace a blown fuse.
Milwaukee Tool says:
Our USB Rechargeable Utility Hot Stick Light attaches to any universal hot stick and is built with two separate LED lights that provide 350 lumens of TRUEVIEW™ high-output lighting for up to 8 hours, setting a new standard for inline hot stick lighting.
In the above image, you can see the hot stick hook attached to the new worklight, which is itself attached to the end of the hot stick. Essentially, it extends the hot stick a little bit, also adding in an LED worklight.
Why is this important? Well, you could use a headlamp, or ground-based lights, but not without light spread diminishing the brightness and usefulness of such light sources. And in the case of ground-based lights, you might get shadows if the light is obstructed by trees or power poles.
Frankly, hot stick work looks hard enough. Doing it in dim lighting? That’s got to be frustrating.
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With the new Milwaukee 2119-22 hot stick light, you have an illumination source right there where the action is, where you need it most.
- 350 lumens max brightness, 2 hours of runtime
- 100 lumens low output, 8 hours of runtime
- Voltage tested up to 100KV
- Weighs 9 oz with battery
- Durable high-impact aluminum construction
- Polycarbonate lens can survive drops of up to 40 feet
- IP67 water and dust protection
The kit comes with the LED hot stick light, RedLithium USB charger, 2ft USB cord, 2.1A wall plug, 12V DC vehicle plug.
Price: $199
ETA: May 2019
First Thoughts
To me, and keeping in mind that I just now learned what a hot stick was and how it’s used, Milwaukee’s new LED light seems like a reasonable solution, even a problem-solver.
Looking online, there are a couple of other hot stick lights you can use, with the examples I found featuring lights embedded within hook attachments. However, the examples I’m finding, by Underwater Kinetics, have much lower illumination ratings. The UK LitFinger and LitLink, models 516001 and 516002, are powered by AAA-sized batteries, and deliver up to 95 lumens at high, and 40 lumens at low, with runtime of 4 or 10 hours, depending on the brightness.
Milwaukee says that their new hot stick LED light allows users to quickly tackle the application at hand without the hindrance of insufficient or unreliable lighting. Their new RedLithium USB LED worklight does look to be a beneficial upgrade compared to what else is out there for lighting up power line components at night.
If I can ask line workers out there – is this a hot new product you can’t wait to get your hands on? Or are you happy with current solutions? Your insights are most appreciated!
For everyone else, here’s an example of what it takes to use a hot stick to change a power line fuse:
Doc John
I’m impressed with Lineman- dangerous work
Seems to be obvious need- Why hasn’t this been out earlier? Seems like a Hugh market .
Dave
Well, I learned something new today. It might be perfectly useless knowledge to someone like me, but I’m nonetheless happy to have it. Thanks for sharing!
Keith
We use these extendable insulated sticks often in my work. Lighting can be an issue, but these days the problem is usually with having something in the way like tree growth. The other big issue is wind. A mildly gusty day can make it very difficult to hook into or rehang a fuse. Also, with the more liberal clearances we’re utilizing these days, we often can’t reach a fuse on taller poles. This looks to be handy in certain situations, but with LED flashlights now that are able to be positioned it’s already pretty good. If you can put eyes on the fuse in the first place lighting tends to not be a problem. It takes a little while to master this skill, but we have plenty of college interns that become proficient in a few days of storm work.
For me, I think having extra weight at the top of an extended stick would be more frustrating than the benefits it may provide.
Stuart
Thank you for your insights! I hadn’t thought of that, about how the extra weight at the end of the stick. With battery, it’s a little over half a pound.
For context, a universal disconnect hook, Hastings P10431, weighs 0.3 lbs, which is ~4.8 oz. Add on a 9oz light, and that rod end is now 188% heavier than it was. However, it does look to be installed and removed as quickly as a disconnect hook, and so it could be a “on when you want it, off when you don’t” kind of attachment.
Nathan
question – what is the red baton looking thing to the left of the product picture. Is that a battery holder for recharging?
Stuart
Yes, that’s a separate RedLithium USB charger.
There’s a little more info on that here, at the end of my worklight post: https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/milwaukee-rover-redlithium-usb-led-personal-worklight/%3C/a%3E .
Bill
I’ve used a few extension poles at maybe half that length for tree trimming and putting up some Christmas lights and even that was precarious, but watching this maneuver it looks impossible. Hats off to those who do this for a living and keep the lights on in the worst of conditions.
About a year ago I discovered another piece of related equipment, made by Milwaukee, when I was searching their site for portable lighting. They make an M18 Utility Bucket Light with a dual light head (2500 lumens), that is designed specifically to hang over the lip of a utility bucket. At first I was unsure of just what a utility bucket light was, but the accompanying images of a lineman aloft in a bucket truck resolved that.
Speaking of lineman reminds me of a family connection to this type of work. My grandfather, an electrical engineer, was part of the founding of REA (Rural Electrification Administration) back in the 1930s along the east coast of North Carolina. As the name implies, this was a program designed to bring electricity, and later telephones, to the farms and ranches of America during a time when most Americans lived rurally. This was also part of Roosevelt’s New Deal to put America back to work during the Great Depression. I can still fondly remember riding along with my grandfather in his truck to inspect utility lines after a storm.
JL
Looks like a nice solution. I have a gripe though.
Milwaukee seems to be focused on electrical utility work over the past 3 yrs based on some of the light and tool releases.
I would think they would have more focus on the remodeler/woodworker.
Where is the router, belt sander, brushless ROS sander, chisels, and updated nailers among other things?
This may be 1 of the reasons ive begun to gravitate to makita/dewalt for some things.
Theres no way that remodeling isnt a larger market that electrical utilities. Maybe at NPS they will get their act together.
fred
In my plumbing business, we gravitated to Milwaukee several years back because they came out with a batch of ne products (like Force Logic tools) aimed at the plumbing business. Considering the prices fro Force Logic Tools and the fact that you don’t see them on “special buy” deals at Home Depot – it may be that Milwaukee’s profit margin is better on these sort of specialized tools. In the separate GC/Remodeling business that I had an interest in – we were using Makita – and some Dewalt- so maybe you have a point.
Paul
Dewalt and Makita have a lot of specialized tools specifically for carpentry. Milwaukee has always focused on the plumbing and electrical market. Not quite as craft focused as say Current Tools or Klein to say nothing of Rack-a-Tiers but definitely focussed. The biggest “flip” is that for years SBD/Dewalt very much catered to mechanical work but lately the impact wrench line up is getting my mechanical buddies interested.
Stu, you are just dipping your toe into the world of hot stick tools. You can quite literally get just about any tool imaginable and some that you would never think of on a hot stick. Check out J Harlen’s catalog. You can quite literally get cutters, strippers, pliers type devices for twisting wire, saws, crimpers, regular and ratchet wrenches, etc.
If you want some real fun, the version that lets you grab and maneuver a wire into place is called a shotgun stick. The trick is that when you do a prison job and give them a tool list (pack in-pack out, no files left behind!!) imagine the problems you get when they see “shotgun stick” on your tool inventory and the guards have no idea what hotline tools are either! They wanted to know where the bullet comes out.
The “weight” thing is important. What you are seeing in the photo is a 20-40 foot extendable hot stick with boric acid “stick” type fuses (SMU-20, CMu-20, DBU-20 depending on manufacturer) which are an industry standard. The fuse weighs about 8 pounds. The other types are the XS-style pigtail fuses that weigh about the same and then a mess of specialized ones up to the grand daddy of weight, the 40+ pound S&C SM-5, which is just about impossible to set unless you are the biggest of the gorilla linemen out there. Not sure of the hot stick weight but I usually set the end on the ground and then extend it out to distance, then sort of hold it between my legs and arms like I’m setting a ladder when I maneuver it into place. The trick is that you are trying to hook about a 1.5″ ring 30-40 feet away vertically at a small angle with a very wobbly fiberglass pole. At night it’s hard to see. In the daytime depending on the angle of the sun it’s almost impossible. And you are perpendicular to the ring so you can’t actually see the hole from the side like the photo…you’re doing it almost blindly since you have almost no perception of depth. It usually takes me about 5 minutes to hook one but I maybe have to do this once every few months so I’m out of practice. In a bucket you use a 6-8 foot stick and get right up on it where it’s very easy to do. Did I mention that on the East coast the guys doing this are wearing rubber lineman gloves with a leather protector (glove) over that and perhaps a liner glove under it all in winter, a glove that goes up to your elbow?
Most of the time we just point the same “search light” type stuff at the pole that we’d use to check if the fuses are blown in the first place. It’s an interesting idea but I’ve never seen anyone with a light on their hot stick.
Wayne R.
Back when I was doing communications line work, at night, after storms, getting light on a problem was a problem in itself. Especially after climbing up a pole; your options were limited.
Until LEDs & more reliable batteries came along, flashlights sucked – those small enough to carry up were only handheld, and the positionable types stayed on the ground. And no reliable headlights, either. So you either dedicated a hand to a crappy light, or blinded yourself with a large device on the ground pointing up at you, and as soon as you tried to do anything, your hands cast shadows right where you wanted to see.
It’s hard to believe the change in portable lights in such a short time.
Benjamen
I can see our fuse right from where I’m typing. I’ve watched them flip it back up probably 20 times since I’ve lived here. They rarely change the fuse or wire, though, they usually just push the fuse back into position.
This video was neat to watch because, when I have seen them actually replace the fuse, they didn’t change the wire, they just replaced the whole fuse. Maybe it’s more efficient to make up a bunch of new fuses in the shop and carry several replacements then rewire them on site.
Paul
The device is a cutout. It’s a fusible disconnect. You pull the fuse out to disconnect power. “Breakers” (recclosers) run $20k. Cutouts run a thousand or two each…very cheap. Uilities require visible break for lockout too so even with reclosers they have to have cutouts as an additional device. You can also get disconnects which have a handle at ground level but the cutout is naturally inaccessible to the general public.
https://www.macleanpower.com/products/item.asp?ITEM_ID=2440
The fuse in the video is a “fusible link” type fuse. You didn’t see much of the fuse itself. The barrel is just a fiberglass barrel. Here is the fuse:
https://www.alans-sales.com/11015-kearney-fuse-link-cooper-power-systems-15amp-p-9062.html
When the fuse trips the fuse link blows in half and the end holding the wire is released so it pivots and the cutout swings open. The fuse link has a spring under tension in it that is held in place by solder that melts so that the spring retracts to open the fuse connection. This type is very loud. It sounds louder than a shotgun when it blows.