In the Infrared Thermography world there is a lot of discussion about the upcoming OSHA adoption of NFPA 70E requirements for electrical testing of live components and use of personal protective equipment (PPE). Surprisingly, I don't hear as much from the world of electrical troubleshooting and online motor circuit testing. However, the required actions for online motor circuit testing require a greater amount of protection than IR thermography in the same applications, because of the need to hang voltage leads on live electrical circuits.

In the IR world, many folks are installing IR windows which allow them to perform the inspection without opening the enclosure. This doesn't help with electrical troubleshooting or online motor testing, however.

Is anyone considering the installation of M-Tap devices on motor panels to enable online motor testing without cumbersome suit-up of PPE, and to reduce overall risk of online motor testing? Has anyone already installed M-Taps, or similar equipment, and can share their experience?

Rich Wurzbach
Maintenance Reliablity Group, LLC

Rich:

You might need to listen a little closer

Actually, the NFPA 70E has been a hot topic for years with the motor diagnostics industry. It was something that all of the major EMD (Electrical Motor Diagnostics) companies - ALL-TEST Pro, PdMA, Baker and Areva (Empath) - were addressing from the time I was the GM over at ATPro.

It has been a hot topic with many companies, including that we have been addressing this topic for several years in the General Motors EMD User Group meetings, US Steel and others where the plug-in modules are being installed.

The challenge is that each manufacturer has their own plug-in modules.

The primary difference in the attention to these two technologies has more to do with the maturity of the technologies, themselves. Infrared is a mature industry with a large number of instruments in the field while EMD is an evolving industry without as many instruments in the field.

Attached is a copy of the presentation I gave during our GM EMD User Group meeting in June. The picture on the last slide was taken during an actual ESA/MCSA data collection at a steel mill using an Areva EMPATH Junior.

Sincerely,
Howard

NFPA_70E_for_EMD.pdf (655 Kb, 40 downloads)