Useful Information Regarding Insulation Tester

By Barbara Morgan


In a perfect world, current that is sent along a conductive wire is supposed to reach the intended destination in full. However, this does not happen in the real world because some of the current is usually lost along the way. There are different reasons why the current gets lost along the way. In an attempt to prevent the loss of current, resistant sheathing is used to insulate conductive wires. Here are facts regarding Insulation tester.

In some cases, imperfections in cladding material allow current to leak and get lost to the surrounding. The leaking current can cause a lot of problems to the machinery and electrical circuits. That is why in order to maintain safety, the cladding needs to be tested on a regular basis. Doing this helps to identify problems before they cause equipment failure or harm people who handle the equipment through electrocution.

A cladding tester is the piece of equipment that is used to accomplish the testing. The equipment works by measuring the resistance of the cladding to flow of current. This indicates the integrity of the cladding in turn. Cladding that is of high quality allows very little current to escape through it. However, low-quality cladding allow huge amounts of current to escape through.

When measuring the quality of material used to make the sheath, different kinds of current are tested. Absorption, leakage and capacitive currents are the three main types of current tested. The current that occurs immediately when voltage is applied to conductors is referred to as capacitive current.

Capacitive current is the same as the first burst of water that flows out of a hose when the tap is first opened. The flow of water is usually very high initially, but it rapidly drops as the hose becomes fully filled with water. In this case, it is the conductor becoming fully charged that leads to the drop in the current flow.

Just like capacitive current, absorption current initially flows in large amount before dropping. However, the rate at which absorption current drops is much lower compared to that of capacitive current. Potential energy is stored in the cladding making the flow of absorption current to drop gradually. When testing the cladding of a material using time resistance method, absorption current is a very important aspect.

The third type of current tested is leakage current, which is also called conduction current. Unlike the other currents which drop over time, this type of current is small and steady. The current occurs both over and through the insulating sheath. Sheath that deteriorates in quality over time causes the leakage current to increase as time passes. The increase in leakage current as resistance decreases is indicated by an insulation test meter.

The market today is filled with a wide variety of cladding testers. Manufacturers are located in various countries worldwide. Different manufacturers make products that have different levels of quality. Similarly, the applications that different products are used for vary. One should be careful with their choice because there are residential, commercial, and industrial testers in existence.




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