Power Quality Consultants
POWER QUALITY
CONSULTING SERVICES
Additional - POWER QUALITY SERVICES WE OFFER
INVESTIGATIONS
HEALTHCARE
IS,
MIS, TELECOMMUNICATIONS
CELLULAR, PCS
INDUSTRIAL
PROCESSES WHAT CAN WE DO FOR YOU?
GROUNDING SERVICES
- Investigations as to power quality integrity for all
types of buildings, systems, electronics issues and facilities. From systems that
handle billions in financial transactions daily to PLC's controlling industrial processes.
We find your problems and work with you to get them corrected!
- Design / Redesign of your power systems to correct problems!
- Power Line Testing with instruments where necessary such as site surveys.
- HealthCare facilities and their special life safety
requirements in patient safety and reliable equipment functioning in surgical suites,
heart transplant suites, intensive care suites of all varieties. Diagnostic imaging suites
with MRI - CT - PET - Lithotripters - Digital Radiography, X-Ray, Telephone and Data
Processing Information Systems, Emergency Life Support Systems and Emergency Back-Up Power
Systems and of course support to Bio-Medical engineering departments. Mobile CT and MRI
Vans and their special associated problems.
- And yes, we have discovered instances where patient deaths could probably have been
avoided by proper attention to patient safety in those areas. We published a paper in
1990, and sent to all hospitals we could find listed in the central mid-west, outlining
areas of risk to help other facilities avoid those mistakes.
HealthCare facilities and
their systems probably present the most difficult technical challenge to investigate and
recommend corrections. This is because of patient safety and signals in the Micro-volt to
Kilovolt region and their proximity to one another and the broad range of equipment and
diverse technological developments and their integration into one place together.
This arena once constituted almost 40% of our client base with one client being a small
Caribbean country. Worldwide we have assisted Siemens, Philips, G. E. Medical and many
HealthCare Institutions with resolving their problems.
Having been a regional systems engineer for G. E. Medical Systems for many years, we
ferreted out many problems in Medical Institutions and developed new approaches to
providing more reliable systems environments. It pays off on the Bottom Line too!
- IS, MIS, Telecommunications Systems , LAN'S, WAN'S, Satellite Links,
and other critical systems are all dependent on "quality power" - free of
harmonics, spikes, transients - protected from Lightning, etc. - absent of multiple
grounding points to provide reliable operation. We can perform TDR on LAN and WAN to find
problems, recommend ways of avoiding lightning damage and outages with protective systems,
techniques, and design.
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- We have assisted in helping to establish new standards to protect equipment (C62.41)
from transient surge voltages and all types of power-line anomalies. Having been in the
"field", most of my career, I know what it means to meet a payroll, experience
high rates of equipment failure, and all those incipient problems associated with
"Downtime" of critical systems.
We have helped resolve problems for clients in
Process Control, ICU's, Radiology, Gaming, Banking, Telephone Switches, Mainframes,
Point of Sale, Financial Institutions, Air Line Reservations Systems, Businesses,
Stock and Commodities Trading Institutions, Etc. worldwide.
We have taught field engineers how to effect better systems reliability and service
mainframes and subsystems in the field at the Sperry Univac (Unisys) Education Center in Princeton,
N. J. Yes, we know what to look for when you have problems related to your environment and
can even rule it out in some case's.
- Remote Telecommunications facilities and their associated
systems power and grounding such as PCS and Cellular site's. Having investigated and made
recommendations for lightning damaged sites for telecommunications companies you can see
that serious thought must be given to these isolated facilities grounds and power systems
in order to prevent outages to critical communications.
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- We have an early broad background having studied RF tower grounding design - antenna
design - transmission line design, being a "Ham," maintaining radio
communications equipment facilities, control tower, transmitter and receiver sites for the
Air Force Communications Service (2066th, AFCS). Yes, we know and can help with
these problems making your site more reliable with our recommendations.
- Industrial Process Facilities with associated robotics,
distributed PLC's, and network's can be easily disrupted. In many cases these facilities
have their own dedicated sub-station and are very close to large transient's resulting
from lightning and power switching.
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- Ground Grid's become a critical path for both safety and an "earth sink" for
the effects of lightning discharge. Exposed outside overhead cabling is vulnerable to
"inductive pickup" from lightning. Strong induced and direct lightning transient
voltages can easily upset, disrupt and damage improperly grounded systems and unprotected
power lines.
We have provided solutions to problems in Steel Production, Aluminum
Extrusions, Fiberglass Production, Truck and Car Frame Manufacturing, Industrial Gas
Production, Newspaper Production, Grain Elevators (very explosive environment potential),
Paper Manufacture, Railroad Remote Automatic Weighing Systems, and others, etc.
- We also work with "heavy power" situations such as power sub-stations and
investigate problems in switchgear etc. We prefer not to measure High Voltage lines, but
have and carry safety equipment to go up to 20 KV and can if necessary. We normally
measure and do most of our investigations under 1000 VAC and less than 5,000 amp circuits
- classified as Low Voltage.
What can we do for you?
First we will ask a lot of questions about your problem. If your problem
is simple and we can help you on the phone in our "Initial Consultation" then we
are both winners. You - because your problem went away and - us - because we are not in
the position of billing you for travel and time for a simple solution.
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- This is the phase that we can tell you what may be necessary to find and resolve your
problem. We prefer "win - win" situations and believe Customer Service is one of
our stronger assets so we will attempt to understand the seriousness and complexity of
your issues and advise you how to proceed.
Second - should you need our services we will schedule time for traveling to
your location to assist you. We will carry a large variety of specialized equipment
for evaluating your environment as well as our experiences and specialized skills. During
our visit to your facilities we will investigate and record the findings for our report.
We carry a portable power line-monitoring instrument and place it into use during our
visit.
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- We normally require a local knowledgeable person to assist in access to electrical
panels, transformers, distribution rooms and that can assist in immediate repairs that can
be made to correct serious safety and other issues that may be found. (Ungrounded
transformers are a common issue.) This person will be made aware of our findings as we
discover them. They will assist in scheduling any downtime for testing, specialized
equipment etc.
- We can make a formal presentation of our findings to management before we leave if you
wish with a report. We carry photographic equipment for remembering and reports
and will use them unless requested not to do so.
- We, of course, will be sensitive to your on going operations to avoid disruptions to
your business or production.
- We travel "heavy" with a battery powered oscilloscope, computing power for
high tech data analyzing and "lab grade" instruments. Also, special software and
a number of testing devices of our own design interfacing a computer to analyze grounds,
harmonic voltages and currents on lines and grounds for potential problems. Most problems
are found and resolved without the extra "horsepower" but we carry it - just in
case. (Most people are under the mistaken idea that "a new ground" will solve
all their problems - it just isn't true in our experience.)
- While we are there we are covered with general liability insurance and our
insurance agent will
provide you with a "certificate" if you require one.
After we return to our office a report will be generated unless one was prepared
and delivered before leaving and will reflect our findings and recommendations.
Currently, we try to generate a report before leaving your site.
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- Sometimes additional research and assistance in helping a client is required because of
a particular circumstance and we wish to offer the very best solution for the best price.
This will enable you to understand that we really mean that CUSTOMER SERVICE is what we
sell - along with a few skills…..
E-Mail or call us about your problems!
Http://GroundingConsultants.com
is HOME to a companion site and it addresses Grounding and other issues
that may affect you. We travel with all that capability also to offer clients a very broad
range of solutions to their problems.
- We believe our full range of services provides the most cost-effective
solution for our clients. In addition we are "True Independent" consultants
without outside financial income from anything except service directly applying ourselves
to our clients problems only. No we are not owned by or affiliated
with Dranetz, BMI, Fluke / RPM or anyone else.
- One should remember that power is not the cause of all problems. However, they are a
large source of them.
Ó 1995 -2010 COMPUTER POWER & GROUNDING
CONSULTANTS, INC.