An ounce of prevention
One of the most critical infrastructures in the world today is the reliability of the electrical generation, transmission and distribution systems. Thermal Imaging is the foundation of maintaining the reliability of the electrical systems.
When an electrical connection becomes compromised there is an increase in electrical resistance and it will start to generate a disproportional amount of heat as compared to a good connection. The electrical system can be quickly scanned using an infrared camera and potential problems can be quickly identified and remedial actions can be scheduled before a failure happens.
At Colbert Infrared we take professional accountability very seriously. This is a very demanding type of infrared imaging that has many requirements:
- Small object contact surfaces that must be imaged require that the Infrared camera has the right resolution, and the correct lenses to ensure the ability to spatially resolve the problems and correctly / accurately measure them. There are low-end IR cameras on the market today that cost around $200 dollars that will attach to the bottom of a cell phone, but they do not have the necessary resolution and sensitivity to the job and will miss many problems.
- With literately thousands of connections to be inspected, having the correct data management system to handle the data, so that you ensure that you do not miss a vital piece of equipment is critical. But this is most often overlooked and professional accountability of the testing methods is severely compromised.
- Experience with, and understand the type of problems that can be identified is a must, vs. false positives that can get repair personal spending chasing ghosts vs. repairing actual problems.
- Tracking and trending of problems life cycles over time to better build what potential failure envelopes would be by having a system to reconcile all problems that are ever found over time.
- Having access to the correct data in the field at the time of the inspection to ensure that the evaluation of the equipment is correct.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) regulation 70E provides a reference for facilities to meet the requirements of electrical workplace safety while regulation 70B outlines the best practices for setting up and maintaining an Electrical Preventive Maintenance (EPM) program.
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Call us today and let’s talk about your needs. (206) 568-4431