Saturday 29 June 2019

Useful And Essential Facts About Insulation Tester

By Barbara Morgan


In a perfect world, current that is sent along a conductive wire is supposed to reach the intended destination in full. However, this does not happen in the real world because some of the current is usually lost along the way. There are different reasons why the current gets lost along the way. In an attempt to prevent the loss of current, resistant sheathing is used to insulate conductive wires. Here are facts regarding Insulation tester.

Sometimes the current is lost if the insulating sheath is made from imperfect materials. Machinery and electric circuits are greatly affected when there is leakage of current due to imperfect cladding. Such a case can be controlled by frequently testing the insulating material to determine its perfectness. Testing the material frequently can help to catch problems in advance before injuries or device failure happens because of loss of current.

A cladding tester is usually used to carry out the testing. The tester tests the resistance of the insulating material to the flow of current thus, determining its integrity. There is very little loss of current for insulating materials of high quality. On the other hand, insulating materials of poor quality will allow large amounts of current to escape.

When measuring the quality of cladding, testers measure different types of currents. Absorption, capacitive, and leakage current are the three kinds of current that are measured. When voltage is first applied to a conductor, there is an initial burst of current that flows. This initial burst of current is referred to as capacitive current.

Capacitive current is similar to the first burst of water from a hose. The initial burst is usually very high, but it then reduces very fast. The drop is caused by the fact that the hose becomes filled with water after a sort while and the flow of water becomes steady. In the case of electricity, the conductor becomes fully charged, hence the drop in current flow.

Just like capacitive current, absorption current initially flows in large amount before dropping. However, the rate at which absorption current drops is much lower compared to that of capacitive current. Potential energy is stored in the cladding making the flow of absorption current to drop gradually. When testing the cladding of a material using time resistance method, absorption current is a very important aspect.

Conduction current is the other name used for leakage current. This current is present through and over the cladding and it is small and steady in nature. The increase in leakage current implies deterioration of the cladding over time as well. In insulation test meter, the rise in leakage current is indicated as a reduction in resistance.

Currently, different types of cladding testers are available in the market. Different manufacturers from different countries produce these devices. The manufacturer of the equipment largely influences its quality. Different models of cladding testers are used to perform different functions. For instance, some testers are designed to perform testing in residential settings while other testers are meant to be used for testing equipment in industries.




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