Electrical Surveys

Electrical faults can put your critical load at risk and may result in massive costs in downtime. They are also notoriously difficult to trace and repair. Regular testing of your electrical system will enable potential threats to be rectified before they cause any damage.

If isolation of the circuits can be planned in advance, we can carry out inspection and testing to BS7671.

Thermal Image Testing

Alternatively, we can survey your electrics using thermal imaging. This requires no contact with the components, but can instantly detect problems with switchgear, overloaded circuits and bad electrical connections.

Why use thermal imaging?

A thermal imager displays and can store two-dimensional images of an object's surface temperatures. Using an imager, you can easily detect anomalies in the temperatures of electrical or mechanical components – items that are hotter or colder than similar objects in the same environment. Overheating components usually indicate a potential problem that requires maintenance before failure occurs. In data centers, where cooling is important to keep servers from overheating, uncharacteristically cool surfaces might also indicate a problem, perhaps an imbalance in the HVAC system that requires correcting.

Data Centers

Many data centers have an alternate source of power for redundancy. This second source could be another utility transformer on a different grid or a standby generator. Alternate power sources must be scanned and inspected, too, and while they are in use and under load.

Standby Generators

Standby generators should be inspected while they are powered up with everything downstream running off them. Here, too, check lugs and terminations and look for damage and debris. To detect problems with cooling or exhaust systems, you'll need to record actual temperatures rather than observing ?Ts.

Transfer Switch

When a transfer switch is functioning correctly, it senses where the power is coming from (main or standby) and switches to that source. Don't overlook that switch during your inspection, because if it fails, it won't matter how good maintenance procedures are downstream. With current running through the transfer switch, scan it and look for heating that might signal loose connections (e.g., insufficient torque or compression on a lug or termination).

Main Switch Board

The main switchboard is a large enclosure with many switches. The cabinet houses various components including busbars, bolted connections and fuse clips. Look for thermal anomalies in connections (including bus connections), terminations, fuses and fuse clips. Also look for imbalance, damage, and debris.

UPS Systems

A UPS (uninterruptible power supply) is usually immediately downstream of the switchboard. When inspecting a UPS, scan the input connections, the terminals, and the inverter section, where there are small fuses and capacitors. Under load, use your thermal imager to check the battery section. Look at terminal posts, casings and feeders. A bad cell heats up very quickly under load. After the load scan, immediately scan the batteries not loaded. Bad cells cool very quickly when the load is removed. Finally, check the on-board transformer (if present).

Power Distribution Units (PDUs)

Power distribution units (PDUs) are downstream of the UPS and are typically located close to the servers, to which they distribute power. Normally, a PDU will have a circuit breaker panel and sometimes a transformer. In scanning PDUs, look at lugs and terminals, including circuit breaker terminals. Visually check for damage and debris, and if a PDU is not a straight-through-voltage model, scan the on-board transformer.

Server Racks

Server racks are becoming increasingly more compact, opening up space for more servers in existing data centers, but they are also increasing demand on the centers' power and cooling capabilities. In fact, the heat generated by the today's blade servers has some experienced thermographers reporting that they no longer spend much time scanning server racks. The high heat makes comparative temperatures difficult. Still, the thermal imager is useful for monitoring power strips and power supplies built into the racks as well as wiring connections, plugs and plug strips. Look for overheating due to loose connections and loose or bent plugs. A thermal scan can also detect broken cords and broken conductors in wires. To detect the latter condition, look for what is called "the barber pole effect," in which you can observe the thermal differences of the twisted strands.