Megger finds cable faults fast

Electrical Power & Protection

February 2013 Electrical Power & Protection

The new PFL22M1500 cable fault location system from Megger provides all of the facilities needed for fast, accurate and safe location of faults on underground cables. An essential resource for utilities and others concerned with maintaining continuity of supply, this new test set incorporates a high-voltage generator with surge generation capabilities and a high performance time domain reflectometer, enabling a wide range of fault pre-location and location techniques to be deployed without the need for additional equipment.

Designed for reliability and ease of use, the high-voltage generator provides user-selectable surge output ranges of 0 to 8 kV and 0 to 16 kV, with constant surge energy of 1500 Joules. It also offers a steady DC output of 0 to 10 kV at up to 115 mA, and 0 to 20 kV at 55 mA.

These facilities, in conjunction with the integrated time domain reflectometer support the use of the arc reflection, arc reflection plus, differential arc reflection and current impulse techniques for fault pre-location.

The high voltage generator also allows users to perform conditioning to stabilise faults and to carry out high-voltage insulation tests. In addition, the surge generator function is an ideal complement for the Megger MPP2000 acoustic and electromagnetic pinpopinter for the accurate final determination of fault locations.

The time domain reflectometer has a large 260 mm XGA colour display and offers intuitive and convenient single jog-dial operation. It covers distances from 100 m to 55 km in 10 ranges, and offers pulse widths from 50 nS to 10 μS. When used with the arc reflection plus fault pre-location technique, it can capture up to 1024 traces during the period of the arc, and subsequently analyse these to provide the best possible fault location information in even the most difficult of cases.

As standard, the PFL22M1500 cable fault location system operates from nominal 110 or 220 V single-phase supplies. An inverter module is available to allow power to be derived from a battery source to facilitate use in locations where no convenient mains supply is available.

For more information contact Stuart Ashton, Surgetek, +27 (0)11 792 1303, [email protected], www.surgetek.co.za

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Megger finds cable faults fast

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