Author Topic: Handheld meter robustness testing (Read 1298739 times)

dexters_lab · « **Reply #550 on:** October 22, 2015, 08:23:34 am »

Quote from: joeqsmith on October 21, 2015, 11:08:39 pm

If we call what you have a sledgehammer, I would say mine is a tack hammer. And what PhotonicInduction has is a pile driver.

I bet the Fluke 101 and 107 would survive on your generator all day long. Much of the time I monitor the voltage to see what to meter is doing and many of them don't draw much until they get ready to fail. I would NOT hook your 87V to it!! That 1.7KV may be enough to push it over the edge.

I look forward to seeing more videos of it doing some meter damage and getting that thing to put out is maximum blast.

have both the 101 and 107 plus a couple of other older Mastech jobs

happy to put anything on it, well apart from my own

joeqsmith · « **Reply #551 on:** October 22, 2015, 11:57:39 am »

You know you want to try that 101 on it!!

joeqsmith · « **Reply #552 on:** October 30, 2015, 02:46:28 pm »

I would like to get somewhere in the maybe a quarter cycle of a home feed. Say, 220v 200A 60Hz or just to see the effects on these dead meters before I recycle them.

Quote from: dexters_lab on October 21, 2015, 05:30:18 pm

thats just shy of 1700v, 185uF

it's a bit of a sledgehammer in comparison to your generator Joe, but it's good to show how well the blast protection might work

Let's assume that is 267J at the connector with no sort of network and you can double that at the connector. I think this is roughly what I would like to see.

If I target say 1/4 cycle of a 440 line at 200A, that's 366J.

Because some of the meters do not arc until much higher voltage than what you have, my plan is to have a second low voltage high energy generator that is triggered from the high voltage transient of the first generator. Staying with a stored system and keeping the voltages low should keep it very small and somewhat safe.

I know it is still no where near the energy of what you could see in real life but it may provide some insight as to how these meters would handle a higher energy transient.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #553 on:** October 30, 2015, 11:52:44 pm »

It's a start...

PedroDaGr8 · « **Reply #554 on:** October 31, 2015, 01:56:23 am »

Damn that looks promising. I love how when you hit that CEM, you can actually see lights cascading behind the board. A lot longer lived than I expected.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #555 on:** October 31, 2015, 02:34:08 am »

Quote from: PedroDaGr8 on October 31, 2015, 01:56:23 am

Damn that looks promising. I love how when you hit that CEM, you can actually see lights cascading behind the board. A lot longer lived than I expected.

I felt it was good enough to move forward with it. It's too bad that all the other modes failed. Really it was a pretty tough meter compared with most of them.

All of the parts arrived from Digikey today. Here it is for it's first tryout with the throttle all the way open.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPXizuSZACs&feature=youtu.be

This things still just a toy. Imagine what a real arc flash is like. If a meter comes apart with this little thing, I would guess you have some problems.

I need to get it into a box and make up some sort of safety glass cover for the meter holder.

crispy_tofu · « **Reply #556 on:** October 31, 2015, 02:38:09 am »

Wow, packs quite a punch

joeqsmith · « **Reply #557 on:** October 31, 2015, 05:08:35 pm »

If it can explode a light bulb what will it do to 5KY's Circuit-Test DMR-6550? Watch and find out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE2tl8NHIgM&feature=youtu.be

PedroDaGr8 · « **Reply #558 on:** October 31, 2015, 07:54:50 pm »

Is it bad that I am actually laughing at this? The power is a HUGE step up.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #559 on:** October 31, 2015, 08:35:18 pm »

Quote from: PedroDaGr8 on October 31, 2015, 07:54:50 pm

Is it bad that I am actually laughing at this? The power is a HUGE step up.

Can't blame you for laughing. It is pretty entertaining to see up close.

I'm not sure what if anything we can learn from it as the energy is way too low to simulate a real world condition. Still, it's not something I would recommend the novice try as a starter project.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #560 on:** November 01, 2015, 11:06:15 pm »

I spent some time on the case for the new generator. 1/4" thick plate aluminum with a phenolic back plate.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #561 on:** November 02, 2015, 01:49:34 am »

Sanded out the machine marks and started working on the cover for the case. Hope to have it finished by the end of the week.

PedroDaGr8 · « **Reply #562 on:** November 02, 2015, 03:28:43 am »

Beautiful start to the case! Those binding posts though, hot damn.

Vgkid · « **Reply #563 on:** November 02, 2015, 03:39:05 am »

Those are some beefy lugs.
Where did you get those rack handles.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #564 on:** November 02, 2015, 03:06:52 pm »

Quote from: PedroDaGr8 on November 02, 2015, 03:28:43 am

Beautiful start to the case! Those binding posts though, hot damn.

Thanks. Glue set, some sanding, stain and first coat of poly is on.

Quote from: Vgkid on November 02, 2015, 03:39:05 am

Those are some beefy lugs.
Where did you get those rack handles.

I don't remember what those handles came off of but would guess it was some old gear I scrapped.

When I started this project, I was thinking BIG cables with very low inductance. So far I have only been using some test lead wire and may just go with that.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #565 on:** November 04, 2015, 03:02:47 am »

Finished up the new transient generator today and tried it out on some of 5kys meters. I had a different knob picked out for it, but seem to have lost it. So the small black one is there until I find it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fYVaXz8lVk&feature=youtu.be

joeqsmith · « **Reply #566 on:** November 04, 2015, 07:19:58 pm »

Well, she died today. Wasn't even a fire ball of death. Actually it wasn't even turned on. The margins were just too tight on the diodes. Was running about 80% and suspect the stray inductance caused enough back emf to wipe them out. Ordered some new parts and will add protection for them. Shouldn't take much to solve it. On the up side, the diodes seem to handle the forward currents just fine. Also the protection for the capacitor bank seems to have worked.

dexters_lab · « **Reply #567 on:** November 04, 2015, 10:13:32 pm »

Quote from: joeqsmith on October 30, 2015, 02:46:28 pm

I would like to get somewhere in the maybe a quarter cycle of a home feed. Say, 220v 200A 60Hz or just to see the effects on these dead meters before I recycle them.

Quote from: dexters_lab on October 21, 2015, 05:30:18 pm

thats just shy of 1700v, 185uF

it's a bit of a sledgehammer in comparison to your generator Joe, but it's good to show how well the blast protection might work

Let's assume that is 267J at the connector with no sort of network and you can double that at the connector. I think this is roughly what I would like to see.

If I target say 1/4 cycle of a 440 line at 200A, that's 366J.

Because some of the meters do not arc until much higher voltage than what you have, my plan is to have a second low voltage high energy generator that is triggered from the high voltage transient of the first generator. Staying with a stored system and keeping the voltages low should keep it very small and somewhat safe.

I know it is still no where near the energy of what you could see in real life but it may provide some insight as to how these meters would handle a higher energy transient.

just catching up on your new build Joe, you really do finish off projects! Your new generators look beautiful, nice work... can we see inside the new higher energy unit, what volts/capacitance do you have in there?

i still have not figured out the point where the magstim fires, a load of 100k ohm and it wont, but 1k does, i can put a coil in parallel with the DUT but then i am wasting energy in the coil. Your approach to use low energy high voltage to trigger the main charge is interesting... much like a xenon flash tube circuit in a way

i am taking the magstim over to a friend tomorrow, see if we can figure out why i am only getting 1700v instead of 2800v on the cap... i am sure we'll get around to making some things expire too, maybe i should try the fluke 101?

joeqsmith · « **Reply #568 on:** November 05, 2015, 12:21:32 pm »

Thanks.

Quote from: dexters_lab on November 04, 2015, 10:13:32 pm

just catching up on your new build Joe, you really do finish off projects! Your new generators look beautiful, nice work... can we see inside the new higher energy unit, what volts/capacitance do you have in there?

i still have not figured out the point where the magstim fires, a load of 100k ohm and it wont, but 1k does, i can put a coil in parallel with the DUT but then i am wasting energy in the coil. Your approach to use low energy high voltage to trigger the main charge is interesting... much like a xenon flash tube circuit in a way

i am taking the magstim over to a friend tomorrow, see if we can figure out why i am only getting 1700v instead of 2800v on the cap... i am sure we'll get around to making some things expire too, maybe i should try the fluke 101?

,
Thanks. Yes, I really "finished this project off" yesterday.

There's not much in them both. The new unit has a power supply, capacitor bank with some protection for it, an output network and a trigger circuit. I originally thought about making the bank using different voltage/capacitance values and then having a waveform with multiple breakpoints. But I already had the generator that could produce several KV, so it was easier to just use the lower voltage caps and design a way to trigger it. The problem I see is that some of the meters I have tested did not break down even with 6KVish. If they don't break down, the second generator is not going to cause any damage.

Are you sure that your generator does not fire? Are you putting a scope across the outputs and looking at them or still using the loop?

With your generator being designed for one specific purpose, they may not have a network like a typical combo generator would have. For a combo, they spec an open and short condition for voltage and current. In the generators I have made, I am keep the open circuit voltage tamed to something like the IEC waveform. But for a short, I don't have the energy available (for good reason). And again, even with the new generator, while I can output a 200V+ volt AC wave while I am injecting the transient, the two are not in sync and the transient is coupled to ground not riding on top of the AC. And, I limit the AC to typically < 50mA but can only go as high as 500mA (for good reason). All that to say, in open circuit mode, the majority of the energy is dissipated in the output network. With a short (or a meter breaking down) some of the energy is dissipated in the output network.

The following paper may be of interest to you.
http://www.denverpels.org/Downloads/Denver_PELS_20070918_Hesterman_Voltage_Surge_Immunity.pdf

joeqsmith · « **Reply #569 on:** November 07, 2015, 05:54:24 am »

Increase the margins and added a couple of layers of protection for the diodes. Ran several tests with it and it seems very robust now.

Video showing 5ky's UTL meter along with some of the fuses that were used in these meters. Why a company would put glass in a modern meter, I'm not sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWKoRxNEsXk&feature=youtu.be

joeqsmith · « **Reply #570 on:** November 09, 2015, 03:45:26 am »

5ky's Fluke 107 is ran with the new setup. Keep in mind it had been damaged during my previous tests.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #571 on:** November 15, 2015, 04:56:20 pm »

Cen-Tech 90899 meter with test leads on the new generator.

PedroDaGr8 · « **Reply #572 on:** November 15, 2015, 06:23:57 pm »

Nice test with the centech. Unacceptable to have the test less blow out like that

Sent from my LG-ls990 using Tapatalk

joeqsmith · « **Reply #573 on:** November 16, 2015, 12:14:18 am »

Agree! I would not want a live probe flailing around in front of me. I tossed out most of the probes that came with the meters I first tested. I think 5ky did the same. It may have been interesting to pulse test these as well.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #574 on:** November 20, 2015, 04:31:04 am »

Looks like I can get it through Amazon. They also offer the 17B with a few more features.

http://www.amazon.com/SSEYL-Fluke-Digital-Multimeter-F15B/dp/B00SEZU4KO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1447992356&sr=8-4&keywords=fluke+15b%2B


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Author Topic: Handheld meter robustness testing (Read 1298739 times)

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