Sunday, June 30, 2019

Useful Information Regarding Insulation Tester

By Barbara Morgan


In a perfect world, current that is sent along a conductive wire is supposed to reach the intended destination in full. However, this does not happen in the real world because some of the current is usually lost along the way. There are different reasons why the current gets lost along the way. In an attempt to prevent the loss of current, resistant sheathing is used to insulate conductive wires. Here are facts regarding Insulation tester.

Sometimes the current is lost if the insulating sheath is made from imperfect materials. Machinery and electric circuits are greatly affected when there is leakage of current due to imperfect cladding. Such a case can be controlled by frequently testing the insulating material to determine its perfectness. Testing the material frequently can help to catch problems in advance before injuries or device failure happens because of loss of current.

A cladding tester is usually used to carry out the testing. The tester tests the resistance of the insulating material to the flow of current thus, determining its integrity. There is very little loss of current for insulating materials of high quality. On the other hand, insulating materials of poor quality will allow large amounts of current to escape.

When measuring the quality of material used to make the sheath, different kinds of current are tested. Absorption, leakage and capacitive currents are the three main types of current tested. The current that occurs immediately when voltage is applied to conductors is referred to as capacitive current.

Capacitive current can be equated to the volume of water that comes out of a pipe immediately a tap is opened. Once the tap is opened, water usually flows out at a higher rate but as the pipe gets filled with water completely, the rate drops rapidly. For the case of a conductive material, the amount of current flow drops once the conductor becomes fully charged.

Absorption current is similar to capacitive current in that it starts out high but then drops. The only difference between these two kinds of currents is that absorption current drops at a much lower rate compared to capacitive current. The gradual drop in absorption current is due to the storage of potential energy in the cladding. Absorption current makes an important part of the time resistance method of cladding testing.

The third type of current tested is leakage current, which is also called conduction current. Unlike the other currents which drop over time, this type of current is small and steady. The current occurs both over and through the insulating sheath. Sheath that deteriorates in quality over time causes the leakage current to increase as time passes. The increase in leakage current as resistance decreases is indicated by an insulation test meter.

Currently, different types of cladding testers are available in the market. Different manufacturers from different countries produce these devices. The manufacturer of the equipment largely influences its quality. Different models of cladding testers are used to perform different functions. For instance, some testers are designed to perform testing in residential settings while other testers are meant to be used for testing equipment in industries.




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