Blogs
Whitepaper: Mastering High Voltage: The Importance of Accurate Test Equipment
Introduction Accurate definition and measurement of critical electrical performance parameters is essential for ensuring the reliability and safety of high-voltage equipment and cabling. For applications which can involve tens of thousands of volts, safety risks are high, as are the demands on the test equipment used to measure the equipment and cables. Proper calibration of the test instruments themselves is critical to achieving the strict performance needs of many equipment types. Calibration results must often meet national and international specific standards and calibration measurements are typically conducted by certified laboratories with traceability to national standards, like [...]
Whitepaper: How to Work Safely with High-Voltage Test & Measurement Equipment
How to Work Safely with High-Voltage Test & Measurement Equipment Vitrek’s advanced 4700 High Voltage Meter and SmartProbes offer alternative to legacy approach to calibrating high-voltage systems. INTRODUCTION When working with high-voltage test and measurement equipment, electrical and test engineers strive to achieve the most precise readings possible while also maintaining a safe work area. Typically, they employ external probes such as high-voltage dividers, but these instruments come with drawbacks and are prone to errors. This whitepaper describes an alternative approach to calibrating high-voltage systems. The advanced solution comprises Vitrek’s 4700 High Voltage Meter for direct [...]
White Paper: High Performance Test Equipment Assures LED Lighting Products Comply with Industry Standards
Introduction Manufacturers and users of LED lighting applications need to be assured that their products will be qualified according to a multitude of reliability and efficiency standards. In addition to voluntary initiatives and programs like EnergyStar, mandatory standards and specifications for the lighting industry must be kept in mind during project development, including the latest IES LM-79-19 and the ANSI C82.16 documents. This article gives an overview of relevant lighting standards and specifications for LED lighting products. It also describes the features of Vitrek’s test equipment, including the PA900 power analyzer — featuring built-in lighting specifications — as [...]
White Paper: Hipot Testing of Military/Aerospace Interconnect Components
Introduction Operational performance and safety are paramount concerns when determining the acceptability of a range of interconnection products in military and aerospace applications. Connectors and relays, wires, wire bundled into cables and harnesses, all must be tested against stringent standards. The number and range of these standards is mind-numbing — and this paper makes no attempt to catalog them all. Rather, notable and salient MIL standards and similar aerospace standards will be used to site the key role that high-performance electrical safety testers, ancillary equipment and software play in effecting reliable and cost-effective compliance testing of components as [...]
White Paper: Electrical Safety & Compliance Testing for Appliance & Consumer Product Manufacturers
Introduction Electrical appliances, computers and peripherals, power tools and other devices found in the home and office environments must be tested to confirm adherence to a plethora of stringent certification standards. The vast array of consumer devices for the home and office — from blenders and ovens to computers and high-definition LED TVs — are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Refrigerators, once basic electrical appliances, now often include adjustable speed motor controls, digital displays and Bluetooth communications. While the complexity and functionality found in this class of devices varies extensively, there is one thing they all have in common when [...]
White Paper: Cable & Connector Test System Facilitates Multi-Point High Voltage/Current Testing
White Paper: Cable & Connector Test System Facilitates Multi-Point High Voltage/Current Testing Introduction Hipot testing is critical in assuring compliance with a host of electrical safety standards and in confirming the assembled product is free from electrical or mechanical defects. Hipot testers are used to measure leakage current and insulation resistance between all components and connections, confirm solid ground connections and test ground bonds. All of these tests require the sequential application of precise and controlled high voltages or currents between pairs of elements then accurately measuring and recording the results. Products like the Vitrek 95x and V7x series [...]
White Paper: Precision Power Analyzers
White Paper All the tools needed to study and optimize virtually any power project in a single instrument Introduction The design of any power conversion system requires the measurement of a large range of electrical parameters that could be made using a lab bench full of instruments. The precision power analyzer pulls all of these measurements into a single instrument replacing meters, oscilloscopes, chart recorders, harmonic analyzers and other devices. This paper will provide a basic overview of the functions and capabilities of high-performance power analyzers. Examples of these functions and how to apply [...]
White Paper: High Accuracy, High Voltage Measurement – April, 2019
Introduction One of the first principals learned as an engineering student is the “observer effect” which states that simply observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes that phenomenon. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner. Accurate high-voltage measurement is a clear example of the validity of this theory. The accuracy of the resulting measurements is affected by three important elements: environmental factors, errors that are introduced by the measurement probe, and the intrinsic accuracy and performance of the measuring instrument. This article will address each of [...]
White Paper: Fundamentals of Electrical Safety Testing
Whitepaper: Fundamentals of Electrical Safety Testing Part 1 - Functions & Features of Advanced Hipot Testers Introduction Electrical safety testers - often referred to as "hipot" testers - are an integral part of electrical and electronic equipment manufacturing. Hipot testers get their name from the high potential (high voltage) they produce to perform dielectric withstand and insulation resistance tests. In addition to these tests, many hipot testers provide accurate low-resistance measurements and low-resistance/high-current outputs to test ground resistance and ground bond integrity. Hipot testing has long been a standard procedure for assuring the electrical safety of electronic equipment. [...]