Sunday, June 30, 2019

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Useful Information Regarding Insulation Tester

By Barbara Morgan


Under perfect conditions, current that is allowed to pass through a conductor is supposed to go all the way through to the destination intact. However, given that there are no perfect conditions, current leakage occur and electrical energy is lost along the way. This happens for different reasons. Resistant sheathing is usually used to clad conductors in order to try and prevent or minimize the loss of electrical energy due to leakage. This is worth knowing about Insulation tester.

In some cases, current is allowed to escape and get lost due to imperfection in the material used to insulate conductors. When this happens, a lot of harm is done to electrical circuits and machinery. For safety purposes, routine testing can help in determining if the insulation is performing well. Problems can be identified through routine tests before equipment failure or injury happens.

This testing process is done using a pieces of equipment referred to as an cladding tester. The equipment tests the integrity of the cladding by measuring its resistance to the flow of current across it. If the cladding is of high quality, it means that very little current will escape through it. On the contrary, if the cladding offers very little resistance, then a higher amount of current will flow across it.

Testers measure various kinds of current when they are used to measure the quality of cladding a material is made of. The three main kinds of currents measured are capacitive, absorption, and leakage currents. Capacitive current refers to the initial burst of current that happens when voltage gets first applied to conductors.

Capacitive current is the same as the first burst of water that flows out of a hose when the tap is first opened. The flow of water is usually very high initially, but it rapidly drops as the hose becomes fully filled with water. In this case, it is the conductor becoming fully charged that leads to the drop in the current flow.

Just like capacitive current, absorption current initially flows in large amount before dropping. However, the rate at which absorption current drops is much lower compared to that of capacitive current. Potential energy is stored in the cladding making the flow of absorption current to drop gradually. When testing the cladding of a material using time resistance method, absorption current is a very important aspect.

Leakage current is also referred to as conduction current. This is a small, steady current that is present both over and through the cladding. If the leakage current increases over time, it implies that the cladding is deteriorating over time too. Insulation test meter usually indicates these increase in leakage current as decrease in resistance.

The market today is filled with a wide variety of cladding testers. Manufacturers are located in various countries worldwide. Different manufacturers make products that have different levels of quality. Similarly, the applications that different products are used for vary. One should be careful with their choice because there are residential, commercial, and industrial testers in existence.




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