Why is a Power Quality Meter Useful? w/ Jim Bergmann
HVAC School - For Techs, By Techs
Bryan Orr
4.9 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2019
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jim Bergmann returns to the podcast to talk about the power quality meter. He also discusses what it is good for and how to use one.
A power quality meter accounts for the power factor in its measurements, and it measures true power in watts. We can notice failing capacitors and other issues that can cause a device to draw higher wattage. In inductive loads, the power factor will be less than 1. However, we can measure the power factor because the capacitor counteracts the inductive reactance and gets the power closer to unity; the current and voltage should be in phase with each other, so the circuit should be balanced.
The main difference between watts and volt-amps (VA) is the power factor. Volt-amps represent the entire quantity of energy, watts represent power, and volt-amps reactive represent useless energy. So, the power factor is the difference between what makes watts useful and VA reactive unuseful. (Think about a pint of beer, which is VA: you can't drink the foam, which represents VA reactive, and the actual liquid beer is the watts. Unity would represent a pint of beer with no foam.)
When looking at EER and SEER, the power quality meter helps you get a more accurate wattage reading, which allows technicians to determine efficiency more easily. You MUST know your power factor to measure wattage properly. Since consumers are billed on wattage, an accurate measurement is critical to make sure they're paying an appropriate price for energy.
Jim and Bryan also discuss:
- Supco Redfish iDVM550
- Matching capacitors to inductive loads
- Fan efficacy and PSC vs. ECM motors
- Back EMF
- Considerations for measuring frequency
- VFDs
- BTU capacity, amp draw, and efficiency
- Commissioning and benchmarking with power quality meters
- Single-phase vs. three-phase power factor tools
Learn more about Refrigeration Technologies HERE.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | and This episode of the HVAC School Podcast, like all of them is made possible by sponsors. |
| 0:21.1 | And the sponsors are companies who, when I started the podcast podcast I reached out to him like hey I like |
| 0:25.7 | your stuff would you be willing to pitch in some money to make this thing happen and I'll talk |
| 0:29.7 | about you a little bit at the start of the podcast and in the middle but the thing you need to know is that I only |
| 0:34.6 | choose companies that I have something that I really already like about them. I'm not selling |
| 0:38.4 | ad space in the traditional sense. I'm more so just looking at relationships with companies that I know care about training |
| 0:44.3 | and like what we're doing here at HVAC school and that's what these companies are. |
| 0:47.1 | So carrier and carrier.com carrier was one of the very very early sponsors of HVAC school. |
| 0:52.1 | They are the product that we sell at |
| 0:53.5 | Kailos and we like a lot about carrier so take a look at what carrier has to |
| 0:56.8 | offer by going to carrier.com refrigeration technologies at refriggedec.com |
| 1:01.0 | I've used Nylog forever when I assemble threaded connections in refrigeration and air conditioning equipment. I started doing it when we started working on larger equipment where we were working on oil pumps and things where there's just a lot of little connections and semi-heumatic compressors and all that. |
| 1:13.6 | We would use Nylog on all those threaded connections and we use a tiny, tiny drop even when we make flares. |
| 1:18.8 | A lot of people say you shouldn't do that. |
| 1:20.1 | We've been doing it for years. |
| 1:21.6 | We have no issues with it and it really helps us make them well and make them that don't leak. |
| 1:25.3 | So just we use it mostly as an assembly le lubricant that is Nylog from refrigeration technologies. |
| 1:29.7 | Check out their |
| 1:35.0 | entire entire line of Viper Cleaners, everything from Nickel-safe ice machine cleaner to their Viper HD |
| 1:36.8 | Condenser coil cleaner that is nice and safe. It's not gonna damage anything |
| 1:40.4 | and it's also gonna do a really good job of foaming out that dirt, everything from that to their |
| 1:45.0 | acid test kit called checkmate. Find out more by going to refriggedec.com or you can find all |
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