Monthly Archives: March 2018

Cable Entry System – CES

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Have you ever left your earphones in your pocket and when you wanted to use them again, they emerge as a tangled ball of mess? Annoying, isn’t it?

Well, the wiring of current and conventional electrical panels brings about a similar problem. The above picture shows its set up and at a glance, three words pop up in my mind: Complex; Costly; Time-consuming.

So why is this so?

Firstly, in the current system, multiple holes of different sizes need to be drilled in accordance with the cable sizes. Imagine the hassle having to drill ten holes of different diameter just to see messy wires intertwined together.

Next, a common occurrence to such wiring systems is the need to add additional cables. If you are lucky, there will be enough space on the flange plate to drill the extra holes. However, if the space is insufficient, or if you need larger holes for new cables, you would most likely have to replace the entire electrical panel and redo the entire wiring system from scratch. Not only does this add on to the hassle, it also adds on to labour and cost.

Lastly, conventional wiring systems require more time to rectify problems in communication. This is due to the difficulty in identifying specific cables especially when they are bundled together. The troubleshooting process thus leads to longer downtime which means financial losses for the company.

The Solution

Phoenix Contact has thus come up with a solution to eliminate this problem. Our Cable Entry System (CES) comes with specific features to tackle the hassle of the conventional system.

Firstly, only one or two holes would have to be cut to enable installation of up to ten cables in the system, greatly reducing the set up time. Furthermore, the CES can cater to different cable diameters ranging from 2mm-24mm. All these can be easily installed by mounting the sleeves of varying sizes on to the robust metal reinforced frame.

Next, additional cables can be installed by removing the blind sleeves from the extra cable holes provided by the CES. In the event that the existing cable configuration has to be amended, the CES allows for easy reassembly just by replacing the sleeves with those of different cable diameters. This eliminates the trouble of cutting out new holes on the flange plate.

Lastly, the CES allows cables to be easily identified as the rectangular frame organizes the sleeves holding the cables in an orderly manner that is easy on the eyes.

Besides tackling the inconveniences of the conventional electrical panel wiring, the CES offers protection class of IP54, making it suitable for harsh environment conditions.

If your current electrical wiring system reminds you of your ball of tangled earphones, it‘s about time you switch to Phoenix Contact’s Cable Entry System. Our CES will be the solution to increasing your productivity and cost saving to your electrical panels wiring.

Interested to find out more? Contact us at marketing@phoenixcontact.com.sg!

System Cabling Solution for Process Industry

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One of the challenges which panel builders in the process industry face would be space saving on control cabinets. Many Process retrofitting jobs require panel builders to ensure the quantity of cabinets remain even though additional I/O’s are added. System cabling is one of the best solutions to save space in control cabinets.  One of our panel builders solved their problems by replacing terminal blocks with our VARIOFACE Interface Module for the project.

Problems:

  • Additional 150 I/O’s on current system
  • Additional Controller Module
  • Cabinet Quantities need to be remained

After going through the product technical information, panel builder engineers decided to replace most of the signals with our VIP Interface Module due to space constraints. There are a total of 115 units of VIP-3/SC/D37SUB/F installed in this project. Photos of the panel are shown below.

Control Cabinet

Fig 1: Control Cabinet

VIP Interface Board

Fig 2: VIP Interface Board

Features of Interface Module:

  • Compact design of control cabinet space
  • I/O marking for field wiring clearly identified
  • Flexible marking of modules
  • Metal mounting foot allows for easy installation and removal on din-rail
  • Allows flexible module mounting positions

In addition to the space saving advantage, the site engineer shared that it is also time saving and fault free during the wiring termination. When the panels are delivered, the end user saves valuable time when installing and troubleshooting

If you need any technical advice on your current project, feel free to contact us. I believe we can be your trusted partner to provide suitable solution to fit your application!

LV Compartment for MV Switchgear

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Box by box towards Smart Grid 1: LV Compartment for MV Switchgear

The gradual shift towards the much vaunted Smart Grid structure has been gathering steam in the last few years. While much of the excitement has been generated from the immense potential of what a fully completed Smart Grid system can bring (for example, higher reliability at reduced cost), Grid operators, independent power producers and their team of engineers are facing real difficulties in implementing such systems today. It is easy to talk about wanting to implement technologically advanced systems, but when it comes to actually executing the projects to implement such solutions, the complexity surrounding such implementations comes to the fore.

Much of this complexity arises because of the vast variety of applications within the industry. It is particularly difficult to find the right set of products that are suitable for the application, reliable, fast to set up and easy to manage. For example in Transmission and Distribution substations, there will minimally be systems for transformers, shunt reactors, switchboards, intrusion detection monitoring systems and each of these systems can consist of smaller sub systems. For example, in monitoring a switchboard, we can monitor downstream load current for energy balancing; micro current fluctuations for signs of partial discharge or even for predictive maintenance; door contact monitoring for physical security and the list goes on. Each of these systems will require the right set of products and will have to be linked in this web of madness. Imagine the chaos!

At Phoenix Contact, we recognise this difficulty. While we have many solutions for Energy Industry that we are always sharing with the various stakeholders, in this series of blog articles, we will be examining how we help to simplify the implementation of Smart Grid. We will do so by examining the building blocks of a system – the individual panels which form up a system; and we will do so box by box. This first article will be about LV Compartment of MV Switchgear and we will delve straight into the 3 problems switchgear builders and grid operators are facing!

Problem 1: How do I collect signals from my switchgears and transform it into IEC61850?

The completed substation topology will involve decentralised controls where IEDs are placed at high voltage equipment (on transformers and switchgears) itself. Even when it is not completed, communications from the bay control cabinets and protection devices to the substation control system are being converted to IEC61850 as IEC61850 has proved to be a superior communication protocol and standard to reduce downtime and increase reliability of the grid. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before all switchgears are converting signals from the circuit breakers and all other auxiliary signals into IEC61850 data. However, examining the LV compartment of switchgears today, the signals are still being passed out with many copper wires or connected to numerical relays. These present two clear drawbacks:

  1. There are a lot of copper wires going out of the panel or into numerical relays. The associated cost includes requiring marshalling or pilot cabinets and related components and regular maintenance to check if the connections are good. In addition, it is difficult to isolate where the fault is when there is a loss of signal. In the worst case scenario, there might even be accidental shorting resulting in severe downtime!
  2. Numerical relay and its I/O cards are expensive.

These result in higher initial cost and higher eventual maintenance cost with downtime not necessarily minimized, especially in the event of loss of signal.

Using of a Bus coupler capable of communicating via GOOSE and MMS will solve both of these problems. Using Phoenix Contact bus coupler as an example, the signals can be easily inserted and aggregated as IEC61850 data. It certainly reduces the number of cables leaving the cabinet and with the light indicators, you can see clearly which connections are good without requiring extra tests. It is also of lower cost compared to numerical relays’ IOs while communicating perfectly with them.

Problem 2: There are too many wires, how can we manage them better?

Being the founder of the original ceramic terminal block, it is already tempting to say that Phoenix Contact is the best at solving this! But in the last few years, we have developed more data connectors to put us in a better position to solve this for switchgear builders!

We have an extremely wide range of terminal blocks for every applications and needs. We have demonstrated to be able to meet each and every customers’ unique demands, be it requiring pluggable solutions, fastest connection technology, space saving, you name it, we’ve done it!

In this article, we would just like to highlight how a commonly used connector for switchgears has developed to adapt to Smart Grid. In the past, our Heavycon (heavy duty connector) was often sold to connect the LCC and Bay cabinets. This enabled quick connection on site.

However, these connectors are usually for loose copper wires only. Although you can strip an Ethernet/serial connector to use such connectors, these connectors does not cater very well for the shielding required for data connector. Therefore, Phoenix Contact has developed a modular connector, allowing you to use your data connectors directly! This modular connector even allows you to have connectors which allow for high power!

Problem 3: With more signals being collected, there will be more testing to be done. How can we ensure we are safely doing the testing all the time!

Every so often, testing needs to be done on the current transformers and voltage transformers regularly. For current transformer especially, if not done right, explosions can happen. Currently, the shorting and breaking of circuits are done manually by hand (yes you read that right) and as you can imagine, explosions lead to death.

To solve this, Phoenix Contact has developed our test disconnect system (FAME) where shorting is done automatically and it is fool-proof!

Instead of using terminal blocks that are switched manually, you can replace it entirely with FAME and from then on, every testing procedure will be done how it is meant to be done: SAFELY.

We have assembled this product into a demo box along with other products that Phoenix Contact offers for LV Compartment for MV Switchgear. If you will like to have a look at the demo box up close, do contact us at marketing@phoenixcontact.com.sg and we will get in touch!

CUTFOX 10 Automated Cutting Device

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Are you still using cutters to manually cut wires? Of course it would be practical if the job scale is small, involving less than 480 pieces of wire of length 0.5m daily.

What happens when you have a bigger job, where you are required to cut more than 1000 pieces of wire of length 0.5m every day?

One possible solution would be to buy another cutter to fulfil this requirement.

However, in doing so, you have an increased the labour cost to that of 2 well-trained operators.

Also, this does not account for human errors as well as quality issues. Are humans capable of repeatedly cutting wires of fixed length with an acceptable precision? Are they capable of running non-stop without tiring, constantly producing an output of virtually identical wires for extended periods of time? All of this would lead to increased costs and wasted materials.

With that in mind, what could cut wires with a consistent precision and can operate for long durations on end without rest? The answer is simple – a machine. Introducing Phoenix Contact’s CutFox 10.

Compared to the same range of automatic wire cutting tools in the market, our CutFox 10 has 2 additional functions with regards to its Speed & Software:

  • SPEED – Maximum Throughput of wire is 8mm with 0.5m/s max. feed rate.
  • SOFTWARE – CUTSOFT allows the CUTFOX 10 to read Microsoft Excel files, which can be exported to the machine. You can create a table of data with records of cutting jobs, containing information on the number of wires and length desired. These data records are then processed sequentially by the CUTFOX 10.

The Cutfox 10 not only cuts your labour costs, it also removes the costly element of human error and fatigue. In doing so, quality output is assured. In addition, it is also safe to use, compared to a manual cutter in the hands of a tired and weary operator, minimizing the risk of an accident.

This piece of automation ensures Return of Investment (ROI) in less than 6 months of constant usage, in addition to solving your manpower, quality and safety issues. If you are sick of cutting many, many wires, then this device is perfect for you!

If you are interested to find out more about our automatic cutting and crimping tools, feel free to contact us at marketing@phoenixcontact.com.sg!