Malfunctions and failures in your HVACR equipment are a possibility that needs to be taken very seriously, regardless of your industry. A critical electrical failure can disrupt your customers business as well as your daily service operations and force you to deal with unplanned downtime, as well as creating a need for costly repairs. Issues like this shorten the lifespan of a piece of equipment, with the most serious electrical failures creating unacceptable risk for catastrophic failure that can include equipment fires, burns, and other injuries and damage that must be avoided. 

Staying on top of your preventative maintenance and diagnostic testing is the best way to help prevent these faults and failures, but the type of testing method you choose matters almost as much as having a testing method in the first place! When it comes to preventive and predictive HVACR maintenance, including the electrical components, ultrasonic testing, like DST, is your friend. Here’s what sets it apart!

Shortcomings of Other Testing Methods

In the world of testing and maintenance, there are about as many methods as there are problems to be diagnosed, but many of them have limitations and shortcomings which can make them unsuitable for detecting certain types of faults, especially tricky and dangerous faults. Vibration monitoring, for instance, produces readings that are easily skewed by external factors such as environment. Infrared technology can detect the heat given off by some faults but will fail to identify those that produce no immediate heat. Relying only on one of these testing methods to prevent critical failures is sure to produce unreliable results at some point and the possibility of critical failure increases. You need a more complete assessment with a technology that will not only identify, but also predict potential future failure through comparative analytics.

Types of Electrical Faults Detected by Ultrasound

The major types of electrical failures that can be detected and addressed when you use ultrasound testing are partial discharge, partial arcing, and arcing discharge. All of these problems have the potential to be catastrophic for your equipment and dangerous for anyone who interacts with it, and DST’s ultrasound technology can identify them safely. Partial discharge, or corona, can often be detected in its very early stages by ultrasonic testing and resolved before it progresses into partial arcing, also called tracking, or full arcing. DST’s Discovery Platform provides incredibly accurate electrical testing that can eliminate many additional steps having to be performed.

Benefits of Ultrasound with DST

Unlike infrared or vibration testing, which rely on close contact with electrical components to detect faults and still might give off false readings, DST can be safely performed from a distance without triggering dangerous arc flashes, and it's more precise and accurate readings reduce the possibility of critical failures and faults being missed. Subtle problems are easy to detect, and the safety of the equipment, the system, and all the technicians and employees in contact with this can be ensured.

Don’t take unnecessary risks with the electrical components in HVACR equipment. Instead, choose to keep your eye on the state of your circuitry with the power of ultrasonic testing from Discovery Sound Technology! You can contact our team today for more information about how this testing method can be helpful to you.