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The environmental test team at Fluke tries to break new products during development.  Here, from this fun-loving, happy-go-luck crew, are their top-ten torture chamber favorites:

When the test team can no longer get a unit to fail, it can be released to production.  Why go to all this trouble?  So that when you take your Fluke meter into the hazards and hassles of the real world, the last thing you need to worry about is whether your meter still works.

Bio: Rick Pirret recently retired from Fluke following 30 years in product design and marketing. Previously, he was with Bell Labs for 10 years in product and facility design. Rick studied mechanical engineering at Cornell and Stanford, and completed an MBA at Seattle University. Over the years, hobbies have included scuba diving, white water canoeing, flying, motorcycling, and bicycling. More recently, Rick likes to be outdoors in the Cascades Mountains or on-track in a BMW

What is great industrial design?  You know it when you see it – art and science, function and feel, color and texture blended in a magical way.  The “celebrity” designers often got it right; Henry Dreyfuss in the 1965 Trimline phone, Raymond Loewy in the Air Force One graphics and Harley Earl in the 1953 Corvette.

Fluke has a long history of meticulous industrial design. Del King started it, George McCain carried it forward, and Chris Lagerberg leads the team now. They have given Fluke handhelds a clean, functional look, with a brand image you can spot across the room. Instruments fit the hand right and feel solid.  Rotary knobs have a lush, silky feel. Pushbuttons give crisp, tactile feedback. Displays are sharp and readable in a broad range of light conditions. Control layouts are intuitive. Users around the world can pick up a unit and make it work – with gloves on.

Throughout the design process, the goal is to include as many pleasant surprises, or "delight factors" as possible. In its Olympic campaign, BMW claimed "we don't just make cars. We make joy". Fluke shares that spirit, and it’s it is part of the difference you enjoy when you select a Fluke product.

Bio: Rick Pirret recently retired from Fluke following 30 years in product design and marketing. Previously, he was with Bell Labs for 10 years in product and facility design. Rick studied mechanical engineering at Cornell and Stanford, and completed an MBA at Seattle University. Over the years, hobbies have included scuba diving, white water canoeing, flying, motorcycling, and bicycling. More recently, Rick likes to be outdoors in the Cascades Mountains or on-track in a BMW

John Fluke said "the customer should always get more than they thought they paid for". One of those extras is diligence, or in dictionary-speak, "persevering application". Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the care that goes into a new Fluke product.

Diligence in product definition begins with the "voice of the customer", or VOC. Fluke engineers research not only WHAT users do, but HOW they do it. They try to understand not just the measurement functions and ranges that a task requires, but also the work methods or processes that real people actually use. What should the user interface be? How could that user interface help the customer work faster or work smarter? What would delight this customer? Several iterations of VOC research and planning are necessary to ensure that new products meet customer expectations. Finally, beta testing confirms that the product definition matches original intent.

Diligence in design applies both art and science to resolve the tug-of-war between the constraints on a new instrument. The circuit design needs to deliver the specified measurement performance, but it must also protect against misconnected inputs and inputs above stated limits. The circuit must perform over a wide range of temperature, humidity, and altitude, while being subjected to electromagnetic interference and electrostatic discharge. Now add the constraints that the new meter is expected to be compact, handheld, easy to use, and rugged, and the problem becomes very difficult to solve.  Each iteration of a design is tested for durability, safety, and measurement performance. Refinement continues until each test is passed with a substantial margin. Only then is a new design released to production.

Diligence in metrology has two aspects. First, a Fluke spec includes allowance for drift due to time, temperature, and humidity.  You can be confident that your meter still performs within spec when it returns for its scheduled calibration. Second, each Fluke meter is adjusted and verified, traceable to recognized international standards, by a branch of the Fluke standards lab that resides within the production cell.

What does all this diligence mean to you? Care in definition, design, and metrology means you can count on your tools to safely deliver a professional result, and that your investment will continue to perform well over a long and useful life.

Bio: Rick Pirret recently retired from Fluke following 30 years in product design and marketing. Previously, he was with Bell Labs for 10 years in product and facility design. Rick studied mechanical engineering at Cornell and Stanford, and completed an MBA at Seattle University. Over the years, hobbies have included scuba diving, white water canoeing, flying, motorcycling, and bicycling. More recently, Rick likes to be outdoors in the Cascades Mountains or on-track in a BMW.

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On a cold day in Tacoma, thermography shows house-warming, heart-warming results

It was a record cold day in Tacoma, and a bright sun could not ease the chill of the light wind that wrapped itself around the dozen tidy homes of Larabee Terrace.

The cold snap provided the first big test of the heating systems, insulation and construction techniques used by the Habitat for Humanity volunteers and low-income homeowners who built these homes. Conditions were ideal for a quick course in thermography and weatherization. It was a great opportunity for Habitat staff members to learn to use their new Fluke TiR1 thermal imager.

Thermographer, and Sr. Product Manager, Michael Stuart had driven down from Fluke headquarters for the orientation. The Washington State University team, representing the Department of Energy Building America program, was there with their blower door setup. A blower door test used in conjunction with some thermal imagers from Fluke in one of the newly-built homes would reveal any gaps in the way they were built and point the way to greater energy efficiency.

Volunteers and partners

The homes at Larabee terrace step down a west-facing hillside in an old Tacoma neighborhood of smaller homes. It's the latest project of Tacoma Pierce County affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International. Habitat works in partnership with people in need to build and renovate decent, affordable housing. The houses then are sold to those in need at no profit and with no interest charged.

Since 1985, Habitat has built more than 162 homes in Pierce County, providing home ownership opportunities to households making 30 percent to 60 percent of the Area Median Income. And the benefits extend beyond the homeowners and their neighborhoods. The volunteers who devote their time to building the homes enjoy the warm feeling of giving back to their community. Each Habitat family must complete 500 hours of "sweat equity" through work on their and other people's homes or other work that helps the Habitat run. Habitat is a partnership that builds houses together with the families who will live in them.

"Our goal is to try and make these homes more energy-efficient and more affordable to live in," said Gomer Roseman, Site Development Director, Tacoma Pierce County affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International. "If we can reduce the utility bill by $25 a month, somebody who earns $25,000 a year would be very happy about it."

Modest in size (averaging 1500 square feet) and affordably priced, the Larabee Terrace homes are built to save energy. Their heating systems, designed by a retired Boeing engineer, get double duty from an on-demand gas water heater used to warm domestic water and provide under-floor radiant heat. Foam exterior sheathing boosts wall insulation from a standard R20 to R30.

"That shows up in the infrared imaging," said Mike Lubliner, Sr. Building Sciences Specialist for the WSU Extension Energy Program. "You don't see the distinct heat loss normally caused by the studs in the walls." As Stuart demonstrated its use, the imager made other construction details and areas for possible future improvement surprisingly easy to see. The infrared scans revealed the normally expected cooler areas where walls and ceilings come together—and were even sensitive enough to see where sheetrock screws were under the paint.

Infrared reveals opportunities

After a quick thermography introduction, the WSU team set up a blower door in a recently completed home. The door-mounted fan drew air from the structure, reducing the interior pressure and pulling in cold outside air through openings visible and unseen.

Though the house performed well, some fixes were needed. In the imager's scan, some electrical outlets in outside walls took on a cooler blue tint where air infiltration was occurring through the electrical chase. In another area, cool "air fingers" lightly streamed from a ceiling fixture -- evidence that cooler air was coming in through the fixture and cooling off her surface of the ceiling around it. A few areas even showed where a little more attention could have been given to the placement of the fiberglass bat insulation in the upper part of some wall cavities. Roseman said the results will help produce a better, more efficient, Habitat house by indicating where improvements can easily and inexpensively be made during the construction process and afterward.

"Everything that we've seen as a result of this test indicates something we could be doing differently that would give us a better result," said Roseman. "What we've learned today is that we need to provide better sealing around our electrical penetrations in the walls, and we need to pay more attention to the connection at the top plate. Those are things we're going to work on now and try and build a tighter house.

"If we can build a better house for the same price, and it results in a saving for the owner, we've accomplished something. Tools like this allow us to see the hidden movement of air, things that aren't visible to the naked eye—things that enable us to do a better job without spending a lot of money."

According to Lubliner, infrared testing could be even more productive as Habitat moves into rehabilitating existing homes, built without the energy-conscious techniques of today. "I believe there will be more and more focus on existing homes," he said. "I think the infrared technology and blower door technology will get us more low-hanging fruit in the existing sector than they will in new homes."

In this issue of FIXIT - Fluke Nation:

Thought for the month

Like many of you, we're still waiting for an economic recovery to really kick in. But are those mythical "green shoots" starting to show? One leading economist (we'll tell you who) is predicting an upturn in residential construction-and when's the last time you heard that?

More in this issue:

• Tool up with the right PPE to boost your safety factor
• Introducing the long-distance champ
• Getting the energy-conservation Habitat
• Fluke helps build the Smart Grid
• It's in the book!
• Chat with a thermal imaging expert
• Read the new Fluke newsletters
• Shedding light on IR windows
• For housing, a change is going to come
• Jump jets, penguins and energy conservation

By Bennie Kennedy, Instructor, Curriculum Developer Prairie State College

A major contribution to my successes over the years in resolving problems with electrical power distribution systems is my ability to use test equipment and evaluate the results. One of the most valuable tools in my arsenal is a thermal imager or infrared camera. I attended a course by The Snell Group in the early 90's. Since then, I have used infrared to detect: Connections that are over torque and under torque. Phase unbalance voltage, current. (In a three phase motor application voltage imbalance causes current imbalance and an increase in winding temperature. Insulation life is reduced 50% for every 10 degree C increase in winding temperature.) Overheating neutrals Overload (breakers, switches, bus way) Undersized cables Corrosion at connections Damaged or missing plating High contact resistance in molded case breakers. (A digital low resistance ohm meter can be used to confirm high contact resistance in breakers and switches.) Cross threaded hardware Inductive heating Ground conductors carrying current Component failure Insulation failure Motor bearing over heating Mechanical binding Harmonics Blown fuse on a 3-phase bank of power factor correction capacitors Blown power fuse in a three phase motor circuit Tracing a blown fuse I responded to a call from an electrical contractor. A 600 hundred amp 480 volt fused disconnect feeding a transformer was blowing a fuse randomly. The customer had used a chart recorder to record the current on the load cables. The current measured never exceeded the fuse's long time or instantaneous ratings. Several expensive 450 amp fuses had been replaced in the course of trouble-shooting the problem. Fuse list price $198.00 each. Any time I encounter a protective device issue I perform an infrared evaluation. The goal is to eliminate abnormal heating as the cause or contributing factor. An infrared scan will identify the issue at hand and predict future failures. I start with a comparative analysis. All connections should be approximately the same temperature. I expect a normal connection to measure ambient plus less than 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Note: B phase may be higher due to its location between A and C phase. All three fuses should be the same temperature, provided all the fuses are the same manufacturer and type. When the line side fuse connection temperature on any phase is higher than the load side connection, the higher temperature connection is likely the problem. Keep in mind the current flowing should be the same on all three phases in motor and transformer applications. The 450 amp fuse blowing above was the result of a bad connection at a fuse clip. The thermal image clearly showed abnormal heating at the fuse connection. To confirm my diagnosis I carefully cut a blown fuse open. I found the element intact but disconnected at one end of the fuse. The condition of the fuse element typically indicates the cause of the fuse failure. I regularly use comparative analysis to evaluate circuit breakers as well. Again the line and load connection temperatures should be the reasonably close. A loose connection could result in nuisance tripping of the breaker. In a matter of minutes, I can evaluate all the fuse disconnects and /or breakers in a switch board in a matter of minutes. Depending on severity, a high resistance connection internal to a breaker will be visible through the case via infrared. Always follow the appropriate, recommended safety and inspection standards for your company and country, including OSHA, NFPA 70B and NFPA 70E. The 2009 edition of NFPA Standard 70E Electrical Safety in the Workplace makes PPE requirements for thermographers more straight-forward and easier to follow. For a description of the thermal-specific guidelines, visit www.fluke.com/FN-thermal-safety.   Electrical connections I use infrared to evaluate bolted connections, breakers, switches, and bus and cable connections. I have found connections that were mechanically tight but over heat when current is applied. Because the manufacturer recommends using a torque wrench on current carrying connections, the connection should be tightened to the specified value. If the hardware used is bad, no torque wrench is used or the wrench is out of calibration the wrench may indicate proper torque prematurely. An over torque connection can stretch the bolt when current is applied. The result can be abnormal heating of the connection when the current is reduced. I worked at a customer site where checking switch-board connection hardware for proper torque was part of their annual preventative maintenance procedure. I recommended performing an infrared evaluation and documenting any connections issues. Any abnormal heating would be addressed during the preventative maintenance shut down. Connection issues that would not have been identified using a torque wrench were found. Because we did not have to check all the connections, the down time and labor hours required to perform the maintenance was substantially reduced. Infrared safety tips I cannot over-emphasize wearing the proper personal protective equipment (PPE) while conducting an infrared inspection. When you conduct an infrared evaluation, you are looking for a problem, and you need to expect to find one. Always follow the appropriate, recommended safety and inspection standards for your company and country, including OSHA, NFPA 70B and NFPA 70E. The 2009 edition of NFPA Standard 70E Electrical Safety in the Workplace makes PPE requirements for thermoraphers more straight-forward and easier to follow. For a description of the thermal-specific guidelines, visit www.fluke.com/FN-thermal-safety. Power distribution equipment is most dangerous when there is something wrong with it. If the equipment appears to lack regular maintenance or is old, be especially careful. Leave the room while the covers are being removed and replaced. Survey the equipment prior to opening doors or removing covers. Abnormal heating discovered with the covers in place could indicate a very dangerous condition. Never break the plane of the equipment. Keep both feet on the floor. Ultra violet light could reveal evidence of rodents living in electrical equipment, opening covers could cause them to move resulting in an arc-flash. Examine bus-way from the floor; if there is abnormal heating you can see it. Concentrate on the most critical equipment and where failures have occurred in the past. And above all if it is ever questionable as to whether you can do it safely don't do it. Some time the safest procedure is not to proceed. ###

Bennie Kennedy is a licensed electrical contractor. He also serves as an OSHA authorized general industry outreach safety trainer and instructor/curriculum developer for Prairie State College, Lakeland College, Joliet Junior College and the Indiana Safety Council.