Laboratory Report 0: Safety and Familiarization with the

Lab-Volt Data Acquisition and Management for E-M

Systems

By: Systems Engineering Group

Date of Report submission: 8/30/2016

E_E 362 – Power and Machinery Laboratory - School of Electrical and

Computer Engineering
Introduction in a data table. We proceeded to use this data
to generate a graph, which can be viewed in
The purpose of this lab was to familiarize
Figure 2.
ourselves with our lab equipment and safety
procedures for this course. Throughout this lab
we used different computer based tools for
different kinds of experiments to learn how our
equipment worked. Before that we went over a
few basic safety tips.
Procedure
Figure 2
Before using any of the equipment we were
went over some safety tips. If someone touched
II. Familiarization with Oscilloscope
an exposed wire tip, we were told to shut down After familiarizing ourselves with the metering
all power by using the emergency shut off window, we moved on to using the
button. We had to have voltage knob on our oscilloscopes. We simulated the RL circuit in
equipment set to zero before turning on the Figure 3. We used I1 to measure the current
power. Along with the voltage knob being set at going through the resistor and inductor and E1
zero, the current wires of the circuit should to measure the voltage across the resistor and
always be completed first as a misconnected inductor.
current wire can damage the equipment.

The primary tools we used for this lab were the

metering window, oscilloscope, the phasor
analyzer, and the harmonic analyzer.
I.Familiarization with Metering
Window
Figure 3
When using the metering window, we simulated
We observed the waveforms of the current and
a simple resistor circuit, as seen in Figure 1.
voltage. We used continuous refresh mode to
Using the E1 and I1 DACI modules, we were able
watch the waveforms change, and single refresh
to monitor the voltage and current passing
mode to view them at single moments. We also
through the resistor.
used the auto scale function in order for both
waveforms to fit on one screen.

III. Phasor analyzer

Figure 1
Once the circuit was setup, we varied the
voltage. As we did that, we recorded the
Figure 4
changes in voltage and current and saved them
For this part of the lab, we familiarized
ourselves with the Lab-Volt computer-based
Phasor Analyzer. We first built the simple
resistive-inductive circuit shown in Figure4, then
connected the DACI module to the computer.
Next, we worked on the phaser selection and
Figure 6
scale settings, following the guide step by step.
After we built circuit in Figure 6, with E1 set to
We then moved on to reference phasor
120 volts, we measured line-to-line voltage (EL-L
selection and observed the increase of both the
= 207.6V) and Line Current (IL =0.401A). With
length of the phasor I1 and the angular interval
these two values we calculate the active power
between I1 and E1 as we adjusted the voltage,
dissipated in the circuit: P = EL-L x IL x cos(phi) x
reflecting the change in the circuit impedance.
1.73 = 144.02W. Then we observed the power
Finally, we got onto the phasor data selection,
active that showed on the Metering Window
where we were able to adjust the value in the
was about equal to the power active we
Phasor Data section by modifying the value of
calculated. The Reactive power (Q) displayed by
R1.
programmable meter M5 was nearly zero. The
IV. Harmonic Analyser apparent power (S) meter was about the same
as active power we measured. Next, we added
another line-to-line E2 to the circuit as shown in
Figure 7.

Figure 5
For this part of the lab, we familiarized
ourselves with the Lab-Volt computer-based
Harmonic Analyzer. We began with building the
circuit shown in Figure 5, which we eventually
connected to the computer through the DACI
module. Once the initial setup was completed,
we started the Harmonic Analyzer and adjusted
its settings (Input, scale type, fundamental
frequency and the number of Harmonics)
Adjusting these settings allowed us to observe
the diverse behaviors of our circuit.
V. Three-Phase Power
The exercise in this section allowed us to
understand step-by-step procedure of two
methods for measuring electrical power in
three-phase circuits.
Figure 7
After we set each resistive load to 300 ohms
with 120V for each E1 and E2, we measured the
active power using the two wattmeters method.
The observation was the power active (M11,
PQS 1 + PQS 2) in this figure was very close to
the active power (M5, PQS 1) but they
decreased as line-to-line voltage decreased.
Then we set each resistive load to 600 ohms
instead of 300 ohms, both power actives started
to be different. The active power (M11, PQS 1 +
PQS 2) was correct because the two wattmeter
method of measuring power was valid whether
or not the three-phase circuit was balanced.
VI. Measuring Mechanical Parameters
For our last experiment, we used the metering
window to measure mechanical parameters. We
connected the torque and speed outputs of the
prime mover to the Al-7/T (torque) and Al-8/n
(speed) analog inputs of the DACI module to use
the DACI module to measure the torque and
speed of the prime mover. We used the
metering window to observe the values for the
speed and torque of the prime mover, both in
single refresh mode and continuous refresh
mode. We also used the control settings
window to set the speed and torque of the
prime mover. As we did, we observed the
movers change in movement.
Conclusion
In the end, each of the experiments were
executed properly and we utilized our
equipment properly. Going forward, we should
be able to use our equipment effectively in our
future labs.