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Novaris
Technologies
When vital equipment goes down for no apparent reason, chances are the
failure was caused by a power surge. Half the time you cannot trace the
fault, and the effects of the sudden over-voltage appear entirely random.
“Power quality in the past has been taken for granted because we believed
the generating and power distribution authorities provide us with quality
power suitable for all applications. Unfortunately this is not always
the case,” says Douglas Oliver of Ellis & Co.
He says modern control technologies such as PLCs, computers and power
electronics are very susceptible to minor disturbances and fl uctuations
of the electricity supply. The most damaging interference is that of a
direct or indirect lightning strike to the power line, or a nearby strike
which causes earth potentials to rise, or induced interference onto power
lines.
“As if the cost of replacing the gear isn’t enough, the downtime caused
can cost companies tens of thousands of dollars, yet a solution to this
increasingly common problem is remarkably cheap. “If you’ve installed
a PLC to run a key process, you can buy a high level of surge protection
for little investment,” says Oliver.
“People invariably assume the costs of surge protection are high, but
you can gain a lot of protection for as little as $100 per item of equipment
you protect. Covering the gear vital to your company’s operation can be
an inexpensive investment in effective risk management.” Power surges
can travel through any incoming utility line, including cable and satellite
TV, and telephone, fax and modem lines, and it only takes one unprotected
device, which in turn can transmit a surge to every other component in
the system.
“A surge coming in through a modem line on your computer will travel through
the hard drive, monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, game controllers
and whatever else you have connected at the time.” To guard against this
risk, Ellis & Co supplies the Novaris system of surge protection which
can be used in industrial, commercial and domestic applications of any
scale. Oliver says the increasing sophistication and prevalence of electronic
equipment is driving up demand for better protection and every electrician,
technician and engineer could benefi t from increased skills in this area,
and he’d be happy to help.
“Most Novaris products have an alarm output so you can gain the additional
benefi t of knowing they’re doing their job. You can hook them into a
building management system, industrial control network or home automation
system.” He says the job of a surge protector is to ‘take the bullet’
so your vital equipment doesn’t.
“Over 40 percent of all computer crashes and data losses are caused by
power surges. Power surges can destroy your computer and everything stored
on it. Large surges can burn up your power supply, processor, or memory
chips. Smaller surges can cause computer crashes, performance slow-down
and data corruption.
The ‘Novaris Systematic Approach’ has been designed specifi cally to overcome
these damaging effects. It is a step-by-stepsolution to lightning and
surge protection that can be applied to any application through a series
of simple steps:
• Define the boundaries,
• Protect the structure,
• Install a bonded earthing system,
• Protect the power lines, and then
• Protect the signal and data lines.
Oliver says loss of business and downtime cost an increasing amount today,
yet prevention is easily overlooked. He says the Novaris approach is a
simple step-by-step system anyone can follow to ensure vital pieces of
equipment are protected throughout a site. “If you need a hand to design
a solution we are happy to help you get underway.” |