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Analyzer connects to equipment to assess power quality
By Bruce Geiselman
MACHINESENSE LLC in August introduced
its Power Analyzer electrical line monitoring sys-
tem to provide detailed power quality and energy
consumption information for connected equipment
such as extruders, injection molding machines, aux-
iliary equipment and other types of devices.
The system features cloud-based analytics
and easy-to-understand dashboard gauges that
require no advanced training or expertise.
Historical trends track usage patterns,
identify damaging power anomalies
and compare energy consumption
between devices.
President and COO Jim Zinski
and Fred Eichhorn, GM of the
controls group for sister company
Novatec Inc., discussed the new The Power Analyzer electrical line monitoring system, left, features
technology at the Extrusion 2017
conference, sponsored by Plastics
Technology and Gardner Business Media Inc., Oct.
18-20, in Charlotte, N.C.
“This is a very fast-growing field, one that’s
being built on new and emerging technologies, but
it’s rooted in time-tested engineering and scientific
principles,” Zinski said.
Power quality issues cost the plastics industry
$9.6 billion annually, Eichhorn said, citing statistics
from the Electric Power Research Institute. About
80 percent of power quality issues are created
inside industrial facilities, Eichhorn said. The good
news is that most causes of power problems can be
diagnosed and corrected. The bad news, he said, is
problems are frequently misunderstood or ignored.
Symptoms of poor power quality included
burned-out motor windings, burned transformer
cores, malfunctioning electronic devices and blown banks and transformers.
capacitors on variable-frequency drives (VFDs),
Eichhorn said. “Repeated or premature failures of
electrical components can be a symptom of poor
power quality rather than poor part quality or
faulty machine design,” he said.
Power quality issues are a growing problem
for a variety of reasons:
• The increased use of VFDs, which can create
harmonics — distortions in the power supply that
can result in heat buildup in some devices and
premature failure.
• The proliferation of electronic devices with
DC power supplies that convert AC power to DC.
These can create a non-linear load that causes
harmonics.
• Plant expansions that can result in unbal-
anced electrical phases.
Power quality issues can be grouped into four
main types:
• Voltage sag, which is a momentary decrease
in voltage of anywhere from 10 percent to 90 per-
cent and lasting for less than one minute. Causes
24 Plastics Machinery Magazine January 2018
MachineSense LLC photos
cloud-based analytics and dashboard gauges, right.
include supply fluctuations, motor starts and
cycling machinery. Consequences include excess
current loads and tripped fuses or breakers.
• Voltage swell, which is a momentary
increase in voltage ranging from 110 percent to
180 percent of normal voltage. It can be caused by
a reaction to sag, motor stops and cycling machin-
ery. It results in the breakdown of components
connected to the power supply.
• Voltage imbalance, which is caused by a
variation of values between voltage phases on a
multi-phase electrical system. Typically, the differ-
ence between the highest and the lowest voltages
ranges from 0.5 percent to 2.5 percent, but varia-
tions should not exceed 4 percent. Consequences
include overheating and failure of motors, heater
• Harmonics, which occur when there are
non-linear loads on an electrical system that do not
use the power evenly through the entire waveform.
This can be caused by loads switching on and off
faster than the fundamental frequency, which cre-
ates distorted partial waveforms with unconsumed
energy. Harmonics can cause motors or transform-
ers to overheat and break down.
It can be difficult to diagnose and understand
the causes of a variety of power quality problems,
which makes the Power Analyzer a valuable tool
for plastics processors and other businesses that
might not have electrical engineers on staff.
Traditional tools for diagnosing power quality
issues include oscilloscopes, current meters and
harmonic spectra analyzers. However, the equip-
ment has limitations. For example, employees
cannot constantly monitor the power supply to
catch power quality issues that occur only sporad-
ically. In addition, it takes resources and time to
collect data. The equipment for monitoring power
quality can be expensive, costing $10,000 or more,
and it often requires additional training or
third-party expertise.
By comparison, Power Analyzer has
low investment and integration costs,
Zinski said. The cost for hardware,
including current sensors, voltage probes,
data-collection equipment and predictive
software, is $1,195 per device monitored
for a 100-amp system and $1,295 per
device for a 300-amp system. The price
includes six months of access to analysis
and plans for corrective action that are
hosted in the cloud and a data subscrip-
tion. After six months, a customer pays
subscription prices.
Users receive a dashboard readout on a PC
or smartphone. The software uses status color
codes — green for normal, yellow for warning
and red for alarm — to indicate whether there are
any power quality issues. The software can detect
current or voltage imbalance; voltage sag or swell;
voltage and current harmonic distortion; machine
utilization, including the amount of time a piece
of equipment is operating; heater bank analytics,
including whether a heater element may have
gone out in a multi-element heater box; and motor
analytics, including predictions on the deteriora-
tion of motor bearings and stator windings.
Eichhorn described how Power Analyzer
helped a film extruder that had frequent power
shortages that caused two extrusion lines to slow
down and water cooling units to shut down.
A Power Analyzer installed on an extruder
identified a drop in the voltage supplied to the
plant every day at about 2:30 a.m. The film
producer worked with the power company to
determine that the problem stemmed from a new
industrial process being used at a nearby factory.
The process started daily at 2:30 a.m. and put a
high demand on the electrical supply line, cre-
ating intermittent power shortages. The power
company solved the problem by increasing amp
service to the extrusion facility, Eichhorn said.
MachineSense is selling its system as sepa-
rate equipment for manufacturers in the plastics
and other industries, but plans on partnering with
Novatec to offer it preinstalled on Novatec dryers.
Bruce Geiselman, senior staff reporter
bgeiselman@plasticsmachinerymagazine.com
For more information
MachineSense LLC,
Baltimore, 443-457-1165,
www.machinesense.com
Novatec Inc.,
Baltimore, 410-789-4811,
www.novatec.com