“Power-quality issues are responsible for a significant amount of unplanned downtime, yet power quality is often overlooked as a key productivity variable,” said Scott Harlan, product manager for power-quality portfolio, Rockwell Automation.
Improved monitoring
The first step toward improved performance is identifying any power quality issues affecting electronic equipment. The i-Sense voltage monitors read incoming power for the entire facility. The cost-effective, maintenance-free i-Sense technology provides the data to pinpoint voltage-based power events, reveals any consequent relationship between voltage sags and downtime situations, and helps users get operations running with minimal mean time to repair (MTTR).
Real-time analysing
The subscription-based i-Grid service logs, analyses and corroborates i‑Sense data via an Ethernet or modem connection from in and around facilities to confirm if power-quality issues were the result of a grid event. Service options include detailed technical analysis and executive summaries. The i-Grid service also can send instant notifications to facility managers that a power event has occurred, enabling them to more quickly diagnose downtime and resume operations.
Proactive protection
Data collected from the Rockwell Automation installed base of several thousand i-Sense units suggests that most downtime events are the result of short-duration voltage sags, commonly lasting less than 0.1s. While barely perceptible, these sags can impact the performance of electrical equipment and the facility as a whole. The DySC dynamic sag corrector uses a patented, double-conversion inverter to protect against brief voltage sags and momentary outages. Users can scale the DySC corrector from 0.25 to 2000 kVA, offering machine-specific or facility-wide protection. The corrector provides 100% sag protection in a relatively compact size and without batteries, compressors, pumps or flywheel bearings. Optimised for fast response at voltage peaks, the DySC corrector has a typical peak voltage detect time (pVdT) of 1ms and can provide a facility continuous, uninterrupted power for up to 5s.
In addition, the Allen-Bradley PowerMonitor 5000 monitor provides current, power factor flicker, waveform capture, harmonic analysis and sub-cycle transient detection. The Allen‑Bradley PowerPad Portable PowerMonitor unit offers a portable, self-contained unit, enabling monitoring anywhere in a facility. Allen-Bradley surge and filter products mitigate transient and noise problems at a machine level and uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) provide backup power to keep critical control and network circuits operating through a power interruption.
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