The Durban branch’s May technology meeting was held as usual at the Westville Country Club on Wednesday 4 May. It was kindly sponsored by Phoenix Contact and the speaker for the evening was Tony Rayner, the Trabtech product manager for Phoenix Contact.
Vinesh Maharaj (right) thanks Tony Rayner after the presentation
Starting with some basic facts about electrical transients both natural and manmade, Tony presented a clear and concise overview of the principles and types of protection that can be adopted to minimise the risk of harm to people and to equipment. The reasoning behind the adoption of different classes of electrical protection devices to suit different types of surge was explained, together with some well illustrated principles of good earth bonding and layout for protective systems. His talk was very well received by an attentive audience, and Phoenix Contact was thanked for sponsoring the evening. The talk was followed by some enjoyable and animated networking over supper and drinks.
Forthcoming attractions
The topic for the next Technology evening is: ‘Taking the D out of SCADA (and turning it into information)’. Most of us probably suffer from inbox overload because we get fed ‘DATA’ and not the ‘INFORMATION’ that is generally required for reporting to decision-makers within an organisation. Join us and listen to Malcolm Heathfield tell us how the Adroit Scada solution takes the strain out of information gathering. (Malcolm runs the Scada Intelligence Products business unit at Adroit, driving the new product range including Adroit Scada Intelligence and Alarm Analysis.)
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