Compliance & Precision News Round-Up - Issue 44

This issue covers:

New Gambica guide
HAL provides electrical test solution
ESCO Technology Group Survey
Calibration service expansion
See us at MENE in July

New Gambica guide

Gambica, the UK trade organisation for the instrumentation, control and automation industries has published an update to the technical guide on CE marking for Power Drive Systems.

The fourth edition of this guide has been prepared by the GAMBICA Variable Speed Drives Technical Working Group and takes into account recent changes in standards and directives.

New Low Voltage and EMC directives have recently been published which are intended to be aligned with the EU New Legislative Framework, although at present there is no published EU guidance for these directives.

The Gambica guide therefore represents the views of the group on the requirements applicable to variable speed power drive systems.

The new Edition 4 of the guide, CE Marking and Technical Standardisation - Guidelines for application to Electrical Power Drive Systems, can be downloaded for free from the GAMBICA website Technical Publications page.

HAL provides electrical test solution

A company specialising in refurbishing consumer pressure washers is using the versatile HAL 103 multi-function electrical tester from Seaward to ensure products leaving its factory meet all product safety standards.

JMS Janitorial Supplies, which undertakes the refurbishment of thousands of Karcher pressure washers sent to its site in Surrey by retailers from across the UK, uses six HAL 103s to ensure compliance with standards for Class I and Class II electrical products.

The HAL 103 is a fast and efficient automatic industrial test solution, which records results and enables accurate testing to be carried out in line with relevant standards at all times.

Test information captured by the instruments is collected and stored on a PC database via Seaward’s Safety-eBase software programme. A certificate, which includes a product barcode and serial number, is then issued for each washer to prove that it has been properly tested and safe to use.

Operations director, Simon Cuthbert, said the HAL 103 was an excellent and reliable tester, providing a high standard of performance in a demanding environment.

“With the high volume of units that are being refurbished on a daily basis we needed a highly effective and robust industrial testing solution.

“The HAL not only provides this but is also easy to use, enabling the operator to simply complete the required tests and accurately record the results all at once at the press of a button,” he said.

The HAL103 meets the requirements of demanding type testing or electronic design applications, performing a suite of standard electrical safety tests and allowing full traceability of test results and records via internal data memory storage.

It performs earth bond, AC/DC hi pot (flash) and insulation testing to ensure the compatibility of Class II electrical products with technical and performance standards.

The HAL 103 has DC and selectable 50 or 60 Hz outputs for flash testing and incorporates a 0-40A constant current low voltage ground bond test. Other features include a large high contrast bar graph display of the test output and measured test parameters.

Specialist software and a large capacity internal database capable of storing up to 6,000 records gives the test instrument the ability to store test details and results against individual equipment serial numbers. Test reports can be downloaded directly to a PC for the generation of complete test data records.

HAL 103 forms part of a comprehensive range of electrical safety testing and precision measurement instrumentation from the Seaward Group of companies.

Visit the HAL Series product page here

ESCO Technology Group Survey

The Electronic Systems Community report proposes a growth strategy for the UK’ electronics systems sector, creating an additional 150,000 highly-skilled jobs and increasing turnover to £120 billion to by 2020.

As part of this ongoing work to support the development of the electronic systems sector, an industry survey is being conducted by the ESCO Technology Group to understand the key factors driving, and the barriers limiting, Research and Development (R&D).

Industry representatvies are therefore being sought to contribute to a survey that will inform Government and other public bodies on priorities for public funding and support.

The data will be used to produce a report highlighting drivers and barriers for electronics R&D within the UK.

All respondents who register an email address will receive a copy of the summary report.

The survey is online at www.surveymonkey.com

Calibration service expansion

A specialist UKAS accredited calibration service for electrical and electronic test and measurement equipment has expanded its operations to meet growing demand.

Calibrationhouse has invested in extended workshop facilities and new test technology, as well as recruiting additional service and calibration engineers at its County Durham headquarters.

The investment has enabled the company to expand its activities into new electronic instrumentation sectors by broadening its calibration service capability to include broad range of new test, measurement and analysis equipment.

For example, the expanded Calibrationhouse capability now includes infrared thermometry and thermal imaging cameras, as well as luminance (lux) meters and specialist audiology and other types of medical electronic equipment.

These additional equipment types are in addition to the range of multimeters, 17th edition test equipment, PAT testers, high voltage test equipment, production line testers, oscilloscopes and high spec electronic instrumentation already included in the company’s calibration and repair service.

The Calibrationhouse advanced technology workshop service is also complemented by the availability of a national team of highly trained and qualified engineers providing specialist UKAS calibration services at customer premises.

The company has long established technical expertise working with many global market leading test instrumentation brands. These include Fluke, Agilent, Thurlby Thandar, GMC, Megger and specialist electromedical equipment suppliers such as Rigel, Bio-Tek, DNI Nevada, Metrohm and others.

Calibrationhouse is accredited to ISO9001:2008 and ISO17025:2005‚ with service, calibration and repairs of all types of electronic equipment being undertaken with assured traceability to national UKAS standards.

Further details from info@calibrationhouse.com or at or at www.calibrationhouse.com

See us at MENE in July

We will exhibiting at Manufacturing and Engineering North East (stand D15) on 8-9th July 2015 at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle, UK. On display will be the HAL 104 production line safety tester, Sentinel quality and conformance tester and the DO5000 digital microhmmeter

For all upcoming Seaward events visit our events page