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Insurance companies may require acceptance testing before your electrical equipment is energized. Even though a piece of electrical equipment has been tested at the manufacturer's plant, a lot can happen between there and your facility.
New equipment needs a thorough examination and testing after being installed and wired into your environment, but before it is called upon to perform its intended duties. Will it provide electrical energy as intended while standing ready to interrupt that power if something should go wrong? Even a mild overcurrent can turn out to be intolerable for a sensitive piece of equipment, particularly if it persists.
 Acceptance testing by a company with no vested interest in the equipment can be more objective than testing by the equipment manufacturer. DYMAX, as an independent firm, understands what your new equipment is supposed to do – when the power is to flow and when it is to be interrupted. DYMAX technicians are trained on a wide variety of brands.
DYMAX's approach to troubleshooting is in a thorough step-by-step manner. We introduce conditions into the control circuits to verify that the equipment performs exactly as expected. Often, we inject only low, secondary currents to test the overcurrent response of circuit breakers or contactor circuit controls. In some cases, full rated primary currents must be used.
Though these tests might require more time and equipment, they are useful in determining whether current transformer ratios and connections are as expected, particularly when there may be reason to question them. Instrumentation and relaying rely on these circuits (as well as potential transformer primary and secondary connections) being correctly installed. Incorrect polarities have been found to be the source of problems in these circuits.
Acceptance testing will usually include cable and/or bus insulation testing and resistance testing to ensure that cable insulation has not been damaged during installation. Acceptance testing also ensures that all bolted joints are installed to present no high resistance points that could introduce a potentially dangerous heat buildup.
As a transformer ages, deterioration of the insulation, windings and fluids begins. By comparing the acceptance testing benchmarks with later test results you can determine the condition of the transformer and take appropriate maintenance or corrective action.
DYMAX's engineering and technical staffs are well qualified to perform acceptance testing on any equipment. You can link to a sample acceptance testing work scope per International Electrical Testing Association (NETA) standards at Inspection and test procedures: Circuit Breakers, Air, Low-Voltage Power: 7.6.1.2
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