Acceptance & Maintenance Testing
Circuit Breaker Testing
Circuit breakers are the center of your electrical distribution. Their functionality has increased to detect a full array of overload and fault conditions, and can detect over-voltage conditions, under-voltage conditions, can meter power, delay tripping for increased coordination, and control other system components.
Testing intervals depend heavily on the required level of system reliability and the age/condition of the equipment. Mission critical breakers require high reliability and are tested more often than breakers for more common applications, but all breakers benefit from routine maintenance. It can prevent failures and outages, and also serves to validate the results of arc flash studies by verifying compliance with manufacturer trip curves that are used in calculating Incident Energy (the heat released by an electrical arc fault).
We test circuit breakers fully by:
Visual & Mechanical Inspection
Primary Injection
Contact Resistance
Insulation Resistance
Testing of Auxiliary Functions
Cleaning and Lubricating.
Upgrades and rebuilds can extend the life of your breakers and provide greater functionality.
Switchgear
Next to cables, switchgear & switchboards and probably the most common part of the electrical distribution system to be tested and maintained. That's because an outage at a switchgear or switchboard can be catastrophic. Performing acceptance testing or scheduling maintenance testing is much less costly than an unplanned outage that takes down everything.
Our expertise can help predict failures allowing a proactive and targeted approach to repairs, maximizing resources. There is never a cost for Blackmon Power to visit your site and provide guidance for your next switchgear test.
Cables & Bus
Cables and bus are essential electrical components that benefit greatly from acceptance testing and routine maintenance testing. Bus risers can fail from improper torqueing and support, and cables often sit underwater in conduit for years with no testing. Testing cables and bus is a relatively simple process with real value. Blackmon Power can also terminate test Medium Voltage (MV) cables to any customer spec.
Grounding
A sound grounding system is essential for worker safety and system reliability. Will a phase-ground fault trip a breaker, as desired, with a poor path for the equipment grounding conductor? Not likely. The result? Something in the facility becomes energized, like the frame of a roll up door, or the enclosure of a controller, and no one knows until someone accidentally comes in contact with it. This is a recipe for disaster. Adequate testing can insure reliable grounding connections with low impedance. Blackmon Power performs Fall-of-Potential ground testing, point-to-point testing, and medical equipotential testing for grounding in patient-care areas.
Protective Relay Testing
Transformers
Switches
Motors
Batteries
Contact Blackmon Power for an evaluation.
