Impact of Losing the Basics
I have been working my way through converting historical training videos for the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society website (IEEE DEIS Web). It is amazing how much information we have lost from the time when testing and test equipment required an engineer and not some of the modern equipment that has come along over the past decades.
The first one that we converted from tape to DVD and now to online digital format was the ‘Rotating Machinery Workshop.’ This video located at http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/deis/education/video-detail/education/rotating-machinery-workshop.html and is from some point in the 1960s. The video walks through the manual tests and explanations for insulation testing that we take for granted through modern test instruments. The result is the loss of the fundamental knowledge as to what the tests are supposed to tell us versus concentrating on the pass/fail values.
One of the recent ones that we are presently working on discusses ‘Fundamentals of Motor Insulation for Repair Shops,’ of which only Part 3 has been recovered, so far. However, in this hour and fifteen minutes, the presenter discusses, with pictures, calculations and descriptions, the electrical and mechanical dynamics of an insulation system that prematurely age the system and cause it to fail. This includes the forces on the windings through to the impact of contamination, vibration, coil movement, and other forces (vectors) that will take an insulation system from an average 20-25 year life down to a matter of a few years. It even shows the calculations in order to determine the effective age of the insulation system due to its operating environment.
In both of these, and other videos, if you are a member of DEIS, you have full access 24/7. You do not have to be an engineer and can get more information from clicking on the ‘join’ button at the top of the page at http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/deis
I suppose it is amazing how quickly we are able to lose key information that would help us interpret the problems that we run into with modern technologies. I even remember having a ‘discussion’ with an individual who was determined that windings only moved up and down in a slot because in a textbook it was dealt with as a static system. However, as identified in ‘Fundamentals of Motor Insulation for Repair Shops,’ they identify all of the different directions and forces involved during the operation of the machine. Even I had not fully grasped all of the forces and found the video to be very educational.
Over the past years I have met newly graduated engineers, from reputable schools, that do not even know how insulation resistance testers (ie: Meggers) work, tradespeople that do not understand how to use voltmeters and ammeters to troubleshoot motors, do not understand the differences between RMS, True RMS, and Averaging meters, and worse. We have drifted so far off the basics that engineers and tradespeople have difficulty explaining to lay people that an insulation to ground test cannot detect winding shorts!
While I am a strong believer in modern technology, future technologies, and have a fondness for computers, I have always found that it is important that I understand the basic principles behind what I am doing. Sure, you may want to start out just understanding how to perform the test. But a true professional is going to dig so that they understand the limits of those tests and what they really tell us.
For information on the basics:
http://www.motordiagnostics.com/presentations.htm
‘Electrical Motor Diagnostics: 2nd Edition’ at http://www.motordoc.com/detailEMD.htm available through our distributor or any online bookstore! (yeah, well I use the sales to support this newsletter).
IEEE DEIS Videos: http://www.ieee.org/go/deis and under the ‘Lifelong Learning’ button at the top of the page.
Want to know more? Watch for our MotorDoc Tech Tips in these newsletters!
Sincerely,
Howard W Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP
howard@motordoc.com
The first one that we converted from tape to DVD and now to online digital format was the ‘Rotating Machinery Workshop.’ This video located at http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/deis/education/video-detail/education/rotating-machinery-workshop.html and is from some point in the 1960s. The video walks through the manual tests and explanations for insulation testing that we take for granted through modern test instruments. The result is the loss of the fundamental knowledge as to what the tests are supposed to tell us versus concentrating on the pass/fail values.
One of the recent ones that we are presently working on discusses ‘Fundamentals of Motor Insulation for Repair Shops,’ of which only Part 3 has been recovered, so far. However, in this hour and fifteen minutes, the presenter discusses, with pictures, calculations and descriptions, the electrical and mechanical dynamics of an insulation system that prematurely age the system and cause it to fail. This includes the forces on the windings through to the impact of contamination, vibration, coil movement, and other forces (vectors) that will take an insulation system from an average 20-25 year life down to a matter of a few years. It even shows the calculations in order to determine the effective age of the insulation system due to its operating environment.
In both of these, and other videos, if you are a member of DEIS, you have full access 24/7. You do not have to be an engineer and can get more information from clicking on the ‘join’ button at the top of the page at http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/deis
I suppose it is amazing how quickly we are able to lose key information that would help us interpret the problems that we run into with modern technologies. I even remember having a ‘discussion’ with an individual who was determined that windings only moved up and down in a slot because in a textbook it was dealt with as a static system. However, as identified in ‘Fundamentals of Motor Insulation for Repair Shops,’ they identify all of the different directions and forces involved during the operation of the machine. Even I had not fully grasped all of the forces and found the video to be very educational.
Over the past years I have met newly graduated engineers, from reputable schools, that do not even know how insulation resistance testers (ie: Meggers) work, tradespeople that do not understand how to use voltmeters and ammeters to troubleshoot motors, do not understand the differences between RMS, True RMS, and Averaging meters, and worse. We have drifted so far off the basics that engineers and tradespeople have difficulty explaining to lay people that an insulation to ground test cannot detect winding shorts!
While I am a strong believer in modern technology, future technologies, and have a fondness for computers, I have always found that it is important that I understand the basic principles behind what I am doing. Sure, you may want to start out just understanding how to perform the test. But a true professional is going to dig so that they understand the limits of those tests and what they really tell us.
For information on the basics:
http://www.motordiagnostics.com/presentations.htm
‘Electrical Motor Diagnostics: 2nd Edition’ at http://www.motordoc.com/detailEMD.htm available through our distributor or any online bookstore! (yeah, well I use the sales to support this newsletter).
IEEE DEIS Videos: http://www.ieee.org/go/deis and under the ‘Lifelong Learning’ button at the top of the page.
Want to know more? Watch for our MotorDoc Tech Tips in these newsletters!
Sincerely,
Howard W Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP
howard@motordoc.com
posted by MotorDoc at
7:27 PM
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