I was wanting to know if anyone has an opinion on which test equipment is better for filed testing of AC Electric motors. There are a lot of vendors out there and I want to make sure our money is spend on the best equipment. I guess the three main companys I have been looking at are PDMA, BAKER, and ALL-TEST. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

We have four PdMA testers - two Emax and two MCEMax.

PdMA is a great company with a great technical support staff. Their maintenance contracts are reasonably priced and include the calibration of the tester and three days of onsite training (travel and expenses separate), among other things. The PdMA technology is straight forward and the company seems motivated to keep improving its product.

I cannot comment as to the other vendors, only that RA-Entek has a tester that integrates with Enshare software, but I was advised (being an Enshare user) to not even waste my time in looking at it.

I have used the PdMA MCEMax and agree that it is an excellent tool. I have also used the All Test Pro MD kit and again feel it is an excellent tool. Another major player in the field of on line testing is Framatome http://www.framatech.com/ultracheck/EMPATH.htm

My advice is to invite all of your candidates to show their wares at your place to your maintenance personnel. This should give you a chance to make an informed decision.

It might be instructive to pick equipment motors for testing that have known faults that are not severe enough for you to have repaired. I did this with the MCEMax when we were evaluating the unit. A critical fan with a belt problem was one of the units tested and the defect showed up clearly. Made believers out of some people.

Ken Culverson

Alan:

I used to be the General Manager at ALL-TEST Pro. I am now an independant consultant and the Executive Director for the Institute of Electrical Motor Diagnostics, Inc. (a new not-for-profit professional society working with ISO on motor diagnostics certifications).

Here is what I recommend, as each of the technologies has their strengths and weaknesses as demonstrated in a class of users of the different technologies in Chicago a few weeks ago.

Rotor Analysis offline: ATPro and PdMA use inductance rotor tests in order to determine broken rotor bars. Quite successful.

Rotor Analysis online: ATPro, PdMA and Baker all use current signature analysis for rotor bar testing.

Winding offline tests: PdMA focuses on insulation to ground testing with low resistance and inductance testing. ATPro focuses on developing winding shorts with a low voltage test for turn contamination and an insulation to ground (megger-type) test. Baker focuses on insulation to ground, resistance, hi-pot and surge comparison testing.

The PdMA and Baker use laptops in brief-case style carrying cases to collect data, with the Baker having seperate online and offline systems. ATPro focused on developing hand-carried test instrumentation.

If you wish, I can provide you with phone numbers of users of each of the technologies. However, I would still recommend that you make arrangements for each of the instrument companies to come in and demonstrate. Regardless of being told, by the instrument companies, their opinions of each other, just be assured that they are each good companies that will focus on their own strengths.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me, including for a few names of users of each technology: howard@motordoc.net.

Sincerely,
Howard

Hey Doc!

When is your next class? Any plans to have any on the west coast?

We have 2 PDMa testers with EMax. I compared these with other vendors. This fit out needs best. Does a good job with DC motors. The new version is supposed to incorporate DC online testing. We will soon see.

Jamie:

Actually, planning on two more at Dreisilker this year. I have run of the shop, equipment, dyno's, machine tool test equipment and areas, and they usually have pretty much any kind of motor you can think of there. Besides, their staff takes care of making sure everyone is fed, etc.

In the last class we had PdMA, Baker and ATPro equipment. Was an excellent opportunity to compare and contrast the technologies in a user-only environment.

Sincerely,
Howard

What did you buy Alan?

quote:

Originally posted by Alan King:
I was wanting to know if anyone has an opinion on which test equipment is better for filed testing of AC Electric motors. There are a lot of vendors out there and I want to make sure our money is spend on the best equipment. I guess the three main companys I have been looking at are PDMA, BAKER, and ALL-TEST. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Alan,

I'm impressed with the several good recomendations you've received from this post.

I may be a little late with this suggestion, but our facility actually leased test equipment from vendors (one at a time) to use in our facility for a good trial run on our equipment. The vendors actually came in and gave us classroom and in the field training with demonstrations to get us started.

As in most any testing situation, the application is of utmost importance in determining what equipment to buy. In the proactive predictive field where a lot of test data is accumulated, I would recomend a unit that includes a computer to help store and trend that valuable baseline and historical data.

If however you desire an instrument for a reactive type on a "as requested" basis, something more portable might be better utilized.

I wish you good luck in your venture and just want to fore warn you that you won't believe the amount of problems these units are capable of finding, which by fixing any one of them could very possibly prevent an outage.

Jim

Josh, We have not purchased any equipment yet. I am currenty contracting out MCE & MCA testing. I am leaning towards ALL-Test since it is smaller and more cost effective.
THANKS For all of the great comments.

MotorDoc,
Knowing how each of the company's equipment does there job may be enough information of some experts, but is there any way you can point out positives and negatives for each, as it pertained to question, namely field service testing for predictive maintenance?

having used both the PdMA MCE+EMAX and the ALL-TEST PRO MD both have merits, but the final result is that I would rather go back to the PdMA system. It has the ablitiy to query the data base for pointed data searches. The All-Test system does not. with the release of the new GOLD software PdMA seems to be the better choice. side note DON'T purchase a system on cost alone, you will regret it later.

We went with Baker- handy since they are located just 45 minutes away.

I like their off-line motor tester- AWA2.2 Surge/HiPot/Resistance Tester. It automatically tests in stages starting with resistance, then meggar, then hipot, then surge test. They have a higher potential unit but we focus on 480 volt motor testing here so 2.2kV is fine and more cost effective than the higher voltage unit.

I've seen their on-line tester and like it too, although we haven't purchased it. I went to a Baker training class for the online tester and found it didn't do real time chart recording very well. If I spent money on an online motor tester I also want it to record as a programmable chart recorder (time of day start/stop, trigger, etc) so I can use it as a trouble shooting tool for process systems. I think they may have addressed my concern, but can't confirm it for this reply.

I saw All-Test's offerings and thought them to be limited compated to the capabilities of the high end testers. It might be better than nothing if money were the primary concern, but if analysis outweighs money, go with a high end tester.

I have not used the All-Test on-line system, however I have been using Framatome's EMPATH systems for almost 10 years now. I believe All-Test basically uses the same software, developed by Framatome (now Areva).

The EMPATH 4.3 version can definitely do database searches and has pleanty of options for filters. It takes some time to get the hang of it, but subsequently it works great for comparing similar machines as well as trending.

Last time I checked, PdMA did not have a no. of features that the EMPATH does, viz. power spectrum & waveform, post-processing capability of the signals, unlimited enveloping filters and automated driven load & DC motor analyses. Some may have come in recently, please advise.

Bottom line - do not run down a product just because it costs less!

Regards,

Aditya

This is a great thread. Could the users comment on the number or percentage of motors they discover that indicate electrical, winding, or rotor problems:

on a troubleshooting basis?

on a PdM basis?

What are the accepted PdM test intervals for critical service or high value motors?

Thanks!

Regards,
Dan Wise

each user or company should explore all options, weigh the the results, and choose the equipment that fits the needs. if infield data collections time is an issue the All-Test is a very fast collector but the time to view the data at the desk is longer. the All-Test automated results are not always correct. the Pdma unit displays the results as each test is taken, allowing for infield data review with a quick note for more indepth review needed.

all in all each of the testers have something to offer that the others may not have or do it differntly.

try as many as you can and pick the one that fits your needs the best.

Have a good day!!!!!
Cedar

Question: "I was wanting to know if anyone has an opinion on which test equipment is better for filed testing of AC Electric motors".

The choice of Motor Test Equipment depends on what ones objective is when testing motors. Do you need an equipment just to troubleshoot your motors and let you know if the motor is good or bad or are you looking to collect data and do the root cause analysis and prevent further failures. Some might be interested in a complete motor management system, which would allow testing, trouble shooting, root cause analysis as well as maintain test data for trending and comparison. Further one would want to have the capability to transfer data to another MMS software running at their facilities to incorporate / share data from other technologies (Vibration, Thermal Imaging, Oil Analysis), prepare test schedules and reports for Engineering or Management.

Best is to narrow down you choices and decide what is the objective you want to achieve by testing your motors and what benefits you are looking for, a sustainable motor predictive maintenance program, Reduce Motor Repair Cost, Reduce Unscheduled Repairs, Reduce Down Time. Basically no one wants their motors to fail when they are least expected and without any warning.

As a service company we use PdMA MCEmax and have upgraded to their latest software MCEGold, it is a complete motor / asset management system, which is the best in maintaining our customers motor inventory, test data and has now excellent reports features. One of the capabilities I like best is being able to generate separate motor list from the database to assign work to our service techs.

Inclined to agree with you Alan...I've been looking at PDMa myself, but on a portable and a cost effective basis. I just began looking so I'm not really sure what is offered out there.

We took a tour to a local motor repair facility a year or so ago and this is where I saw the PDMa in action. Has a nice clean signature with sidebands, and as the side band amplitude increases this shows the severity of the rotor bars. I also need a way to do off load testing if possible. That would be really nifty!!

I'm also looking to find other internal motor problems as well, leads, windings, shorted laminants etc, which would caue that high 1X vibration signature...

Keep us posted as to what you go with, and drop me a line..

Rodney Bell
Baton Rouge, LA

I am a Long Time Reader,First Time Poster, but this topic was just too interesting.

No matter who you talk to in our field, everyone seems to have their favoruites, be it PDMA, Baker, Alltest, the list goes on, and most of us feel strongly about our choices. And no matter what is said, there has been a lot of research and development put into each of these.

I have had experience with most of these Brands [previously a Field Service Tech for Large Motor Shop, now involved with a strictly Service/Testing company] and personnally I choose the PDMA MCEmax system hands down... not to imply that you should

1st off: Review your current situation (what technologies or practices do we currently use)

2nd: Set goals for your program (DO I want to randomly test motors as I become suspicious, or make the testing time based or even take it to the next level )

Ask yourself, "What do I want to do with the data I collect?" (this is where I was sold on PDMA)

How you answer this question will help make the decision of equipment brand much easier.

3rd: Meet with the vendors and allow each to make an initial pitch. They will supply you with tons of info. I like to see which approach the vendors take in presenting their product. Are they proactive in developing their own technology or rather reactive to their competitors releases.

This was my major complaint with the Alltest (vendor not equipment), I heard "we can do this just like Baker/PDMA" a little too often.

4th: After reviewing the information and cases presented, do some in-field testing. Try them all... you'll quickly find features you like and dislike.

Are the tests safe... can they harm the equipment? Get it in writing

Also, get supporting info on standards like IEEE, NEMA, etc and question how the equipment meets these guidlines. (Surge Tests - New or recondition motors... not meant as a field test)

7th: Do some research and talk to other customers (infact your doing that now).

Ask how they felt the post-purchase support was? Were they satisfied, are they still?

Most importantly Don't let $ be your determining factor. An effective program will recoup the costs very quickly.

I am making a comparison between EMPATH 2000 & the EMAX / PdMA and also with the on-line motor monitoring developped by Baker.

My goal is to find the best equipment to analyze and realize predictive maintenance on induction & DC Motors and also on Transformers up to 50 MVA.
Prices given y EMPATH 2000 seem low compared to the others.
Do we have had any positive or negative comments from customers on these different systems?
Thanks, Sophie