Written by Mark Lloyd, Product Manager- Power Supplies & Surge Protection

What use is the best type of surge protection if you don‘t know how long it will remain active?

When I took on the role of the UK Product Management for Surge & Lightning Protection devices, I thought I had successfully avoided any complicated Industry 4.0 or Industrial Internet of Things involvement. I thought you couldn’t possibly be able to monitor surge currents and transient over-voltages in real time over a network. Boy, was I wrong.

This month we have unveiled ImpulseCheck which is the world’s first intelligent assistance system for surge protection in the field of mains protection.

This unique solution allows the continuous monitoring of an installations active conductors connected to a surge protection device (SPD). Surge currents and transient over-voltages are detected on all active conductors, receive a time stamp and the info transferred seamlessly to the PROFICLOUD, where the events can be analysed and interpreted.

The measurement and representation of the load caused by transient over-voltages and surge currents does not depend on the type of SPD, so (and I should not really tell you this) the system will work with any manufacturers SPD. Only if the installed SPDs are Phoenix Contact devices can the state of health (SoH) and recommendations for the predictive replacement of the surge protection be made based upon the stored knowledge of the specific Phoenix Contact device.

Thanks to the connection with PROFICLOUD, the information can be displayed in any web browser. Various results, such as any change in status of a protective plug, are also reported to you by the system via a push message. This allows you to act before an SPD actually fails.

Depending on the system type the lightning protection standard IEC 62305-3, requires that SPDs are tested at specific industries. This is commonplace in industries such as Nuclear and Aerospace, but in my experience it is not always adhered to in other industries. Traditionally you have either visual inspection, where you can see if the SPD is healthy or failed by a green or red coloured window on the SPD (not all manufacturers SPDs have this), or you have a remote contact which only operates when the SPD has failed, and again not all SPDs have this. The ImpulseCheck gives the opportunity to generate status reports at any time at the touch of a button. It also allows the SPD to be replaced before it fails so that your system is always 100% protected.

We are only at the start of a journey with this new product, and it will open up a host of new possibilities from potential automated ordering of replacement plugs for damaged SPDs to digital business models for maintenance and servicing.

Your opportunity to become part of this innovation

For a chance to be one of 100 exclusive ImpulseCheck customers please click on this link from which you can register for a free starter pack.

The link also has more information about the product, a video, FAQ, applications and also the ability to log onto a demo system of our Impulse Analytics app on the PROFICLOUD.

Should you need to discuss your application in detail please do not hesitate to contact me by dropping an email at mlloyd@phoenixcontact.com