atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Power line monitoring

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Is anyone here involved in monitoring a customer's power line for problems? Do you have a recommendation for software that can be loaded into a laptop that would allow monitoring "on the fly" and then printed out for evidence in a hearings against a power company?

At AT&T, I used to use machines made by Dranetz, which were bulky, but have not kept up with the industry in recent years. I can find out what's available doing a search, but I would like to hear from fellow contractors on what exactly is the best method and equipment these days.

The only ones I've seen the power companys had. I seem to remember one with a disk that we used at AT&T but that was a long time ago.

Edit: Would something like this work?

Thanks, I'll check them out.

Arthur, years ago we had computer problems in my office at Bell. Reported it to the Building's Dept who placed a "Line Recorder" on the circuit. They ran it for a week & told us absolutely "0".

However, at that time there was a cracker jack technician in the Special Services Dept at Bell. He installed what he said was a $50,ooo test set. Within 2 minutes he showed us the report where the problem was a power fluctuation. It'd go from 80 vac to 126 vac in .29 seconds, then 97.8 vdc to 132 vac etc, etc.

I know if you complain enough to the local electric company here tht will do a recording as well. Don't know how acurate their test is though.

We use the free software that monitors the battery back-ups. It gives you both graphs and a long log of peaks, dips, brown outs, etc. I printed off over 50 pages one day to prove our argument for brown outs at a customer's site.

Funny you should ask. A sparkie friend of mine just two days ago asked me to "find something so that he can record the current through a 3 phase 4 wire service over a 7 day period". (You didn't think he was going to know what to look for, do you?)

I hooked him up with these guys to rent an Amprobe DM-III power quality analyzer. You can download the data to a PC. Very inexpensive to rent. Give them a call, I know that they have three left.

-Hal

We still use Dranetz. They have pen recorders that are cheaper, but I always found Dranetz to be the best. Their newer equipment is small.

Most equipment of this type can be rented. I've used ElectroRent - but not recently.

Sam

I have one of those "CLUNKY" Dranetz machines myself.

Right now it sits in my basement, connected to my MAGIX and never tells me anything.

I could be talked into renting it for a while, but it would cost a FORTUNE to ship it anywhere.

Not to mention, it's not very user friendly.

Thus, the recommendation by Silversam would probably be the best way to go.

Plus, they can tell you how to set it up.

Me, I would just struggle with that part.