If knew more about programming more than I do and have the time to devote to this project I would
But unfortunately I do not have the time and my programming skills are not good enough at this time to under take this type of project
How difficult would under taking this project be to do
When I bought this meter it was just do meter reading remotely and because the software was free to try it I did and was impressed with what it can do
But like I said earlier this something that I used to troubleshoot with and I have to have a certain type of problem that I need answer for that data logging does for you
Here is the story about why I need to buy a meter like this
Where I work we have overhead cranes and one of our cranes that has a VFD drive was blowing fuse but what I could not figure out was what was causing the fuse to blow
So I put a phase loss monitor on power supply leads and set it for 15% deviation which if more than that it lock out the device until the voltage went back to normal however it still blew fuse randomly so I set the phase loss monitor to 8% well at this setting it still blew a fuse every once in while
But this is still not an answer for this problem because with out the phase loss monitor there it would blow the IGBT module in the VFD drive
Of course management wants to know what is causing the problem
Now it is very difficult to put a meter on one phase and only look at that phase and know what is going on
So I talked to our management team about them buying a Fluke Bluetooth amp probe and I bought the Fluke multimeter and a amp probe as well now I can read all three phases at the same exact time with this information I found what the problem was which I had feel that this was the problem
The problem is that one phase would deviate more than 10% and switch to another phase
and would only happen when you ran the hoist up and down and moving the trolley back and forth
Which the trolley drive is the one with the VFD drive on it
Just running the trolley only was not a problem but when you ran both of at the same exact time then you would have the voltage loss and the unbalanced between the phases
I had to run this test a few times before I figured out what part of the wiring was causing the problem and found that the festoon cable was not heavy enough for the load that was being placed on it
This crane is not very new and this crane had contact-ors on it but the motor on the trolley gear box the motor shaft would wear out because our children where I work at want to jog the motor all time and because when I would look for a motor for I would not find the same rpm specifications that would match the other motor on the other trolley
With this setup just using contactors to control the two speed motor was fine the motor can handle unbalanced phases as long as they are short in duration But a VFD drive does not tolerate voltage problem like this very well unless you double the size of VFD drive which can not always be done because you do not have the space for a bigger drive
So having meters that can do meter logging by Bluetooth is important in this situation because I need to narrow down what was causing the problem with just replacing drives replacing all the wiring was not going to make the management team very happy taking that approach and was not the way I like to do things in the first place
The management team want testing results for a problem like this when it a intermittent problem like this before they want to spend money which I can not blame them for
I think I might just feed it straight to a micromite for now because I'm curious and there is nothing faster for such tests. Kinda swamped right now though....this country shuts down for Xmas, soon and I am not done.
The last major project I worked on was a couple of years ago on a 3-phase mains regulator that had to handle 2000A for around 225VAC per phase. Besides having a caged area, warning signs, signed and updated JSAs on display etc, there was only death death death all around. The various breakers would only work properly with conventional loads but the regulation circuit being developed and tested might glitch and short out one phase only which did happen one time prior to load testing and the 200A 1" thick cables feeding the control circuitry started to melt but mainly the non-flammable insulation went up in smoke, and lots and lots of it. The various CBs failed to trip and in fact one electronic CB welded its contacts closed!! The entire facility was evacuated to the EA point but no smoke alarms sounded though they were working, they were badly positioned and the thick black smoke didn't like ascending to the high ceiling. The unit(s) was moved to another shed close to the road and away from the other manufacturing and testing sheds.
Sometime after all this, despite my protests, since I was embarking on a fool-proof safety circuit before any further testing, they brought in a truck with a 3MVA generator trailer and a fuel trailer, on-site at great expense (rather than risk their generator). What did I do? I basically took a one week unscheduled holiday and let them wear the expenses of their folly because they thought that would pressure me into premature full-load testing. One little accident could result in extreme flash burn (imagine being your flesh cooked thoroughly and instantly) or exploding transformers and bus-bars at the very least. Obviously after that I distanced myself from the project which then failed to progress and the units are sitting in storage somewhere.
BTW, I realize this is going OT but I think we all know now that Fluke was good, could still be good, but you are certainly paying for the name and there is always better value for money and the same quality elsewhere. Personally I'd like to design tiny BLE scope/meter probes and use a phone/tablet at a distance while monitoring and capturing one or umpteen channels. Need more channels? Just clip on more probes.
Well I decided to send an email to Fluke and reads like this
“The hole reason for buying this meter was to use the Bluetooth function of on my iPad which it does work
I used the application for the 30 days and loved it but when I found out that you have pay for using it
BUT what I do not understand is WHY you have to pay $249.00 a year to be able to use the application really
It bad enough that this meter with this application is a little pricey but to have pay to use the application is annoying problem it does not need to be this way
Yes it has a free version of the software application but it will record the event but you can NOT save it and you can NOT review the results unless you pay for the application really
And is worthless for troubleshooting electrical problem on 3 phase when you can not review the results
While I had the 30 day free trial
I want to tell you about a problem that I was able to to troubleshoot with your meter and use the application
Where I work we have a overhead crane that has a intermittent problem with blowing a fuse on a VFD drive I need to figure out what was causing this problem so convenient our management team in buying a amp clamp on meter and I bought a multimeter and a clamp on meter
I used one meter on each phase and was able to find that I have a voltage drop and a unbalanced phase problem with a little more testing in different places on this crane I found where my voltage drop and unbalanced problem is and I am able to fix the problem
But only because I was able to review the application results I was able to see the voltage drop from the data
But what is also bad about this is that I only would use this application is when I have to troubleshoot a problem like this or something similar which might a couple times a year
I am very very disappointed in the Fluke has done this I would hope that they reconsider their thinking on this issue
The Emperor's New Clothes syndrome, is what I call it. In this case, a low-cost product is not allowed to be anywhere near as good as the high-cost one.
The VC99 clearly wins but all he does is bad-mouth it....The comments section picked-up on this bias.
Here is another one: This guy needs several Flukes, an Amprobe and a Brymen just to keep up with the features of the VC99 and look at the performance comparison.
And here again he has to harp-on about construction quality and glass fuses....alarmist claptrap to detract from the positives. He needs to look inside some of his kitchen appliances or his wife's/daughter's hair dryer.
I've just dug a Fluke out of a toolbag to make a few measurements and, as I looked at it, I realised that I knew when I bought it. That meter is 24 years old and still works fine after living in the bottom of a toolbag with no protection. And it isn't one of the top-of-the-line ones either: just a basic 75. It probably cost around 100GBP when I bought it, so an investment of 4GBP per year. Not too shabby.
I wish Roy hadn't made me aware of Disingenuous Dave. I'm really quite livid. He's clearly getting some form of kickback from Fluke and his little Pied Piper routine seems to have had an awful lot of viewers pony-up for expensive Flukes through disinformation, scare tactics and propaganda.
There's some strong emotions starting to bubble up in this thread... please could we keep to facts and not poke others for having alternative opinions.
Well I decided to send an email to Fluke and reads like this
“The hole reason for buying this meter was to use the Bluetooth function of on my iPad which it does work
I used the application for the 30 days and loved it but when I found out that you have pay for using it
BUT what I do not understand is WHY you have to pay $249.00 a year to be able to use the application really
It bad enough that this meter with this application is a little pricey but to have pay to use the application is annoying problem it does not need to be this way
Yes it has a free version of the software application but it will record the event but you can NOT save it and you can NOT review the results unless you pay for the application really
And is worthless for troubleshooting electrical problem on 3 phase when you can not review the results
While I had the 30 day free trial
I want to tell you about a problem that I was able to to troubleshoot with your meter and use the application
Where I work we have a overhead crane that has a intermittent problem with blowing a fuse on a VFD drive I need to figure out what was causing this problem so convenient our management team in buying a amp clamp on meter and I bought a multimeter and a clamp on meter
I used one meter on each phase and was able to find that I have a voltage drop and a unbalanced phase problem with a little more testing in different places on this crane I found where my voltage drop and unbalanced problem is and I am able to fix the problem
But only because I was able to review the application results I was able to see the voltage drop from the data
But what is also bad about this is that I only would use this application is when I have to troubleshoot a problem like this or something similar which might a couple times a year
I am very very disappointed in the Fluke has done this I would hope that they reconsider their thinking on this issue
Fluke meter disappoint user “
This is the response that I got ( in part )
The paid for side of the Fluke Connect application has nothing to do with having access to your data. Your results can be viewed or exported from your phone without paying or you can pull up your data on the cloud also without charge. The paid for portion of the application is an asset management software package. So unless you need or want access to an asset management package you don’t need to pay for the application. I am aware this is not very clear.
If you have more questions that are application specific here are some additional contacts.
Fluke Condition Monitoring
flukeconnectsupport@fluke.com
425-200-008
Jason Axelson | Field Support Engineer II
Fluke Corporation
Main: 800-443-5853
Email: fluke-info@fluke.com
I will call them on Monday and see if we can get this to work right I will let you know what the outcome is
I have some what figured out how to retrieve the data but it is a little wired how you have to do it ( it was a lot easier to retrieve your data results when you have the free trial software )
Here is the data results from the the crane that has the voltage drop problem
You have to click the image to see the hole graph ( this test was done with both hoist and trolley motor activated at the same time )
As you can see in the graph that L1 has a dip and L3 has a voltage spike only L2 is mostly stable
Really weird that one leg would dip and another leg would spike in the same time frame
And as you can also see there seems to be a lot of noise on this data results
The phase loss monitor see this voltage fluctuations and sometimes respond to it and cut off the power to the VFD drive based on how you set up the device I have the time setting set to maximum delay and the voltage fluctuations set to about 8% the maximum setting is 15%
I have replaced the festoon power supply cable to the trolley and hoist motors because the wire gauge was #14 and replaced it with a #10 gauge wire ( this cable had been repaired a couple of times before any way )
I going to run this test again and see what the results are now with the heavier gauge wire and if there is any difference
I have taken apart this meter and I have agree that current shunt is close to the voltage measuring input barrels which to me is not a good thing and not a very good manufacturing best practices either
I personally would not use it for high voltage measurements unless I took out current shunt and or put heat shrink tubing on the shunt
I have taken apart this meter and I have agree that current shunt is close to the voltage measuring input barrels which to me is not a good thing and not a very good manufacturing best practices either
I personally would not use it for high voltage measurements unless I took out current shunt and or put heat shrink tubing on the shunt
Comments
But unfortunately I do not have the time and my programming skills are not good enough at this time to under take this type of project
How difficult would under taking this project be to do
When I bought this meter it was just do meter reading remotely and because the software was free to try it I did and was impressed with what it can do
But like I said earlier this something that I used to troubleshoot with and I have to have a certain type of problem that I need answer for that data logging does for you
Here is the story about why I need to buy a meter like this
Where I work we have overhead cranes and one of our cranes that has a VFD drive was blowing fuse but what I could not figure out was what was causing the fuse to blow
So I put a phase loss monitor on power supply leads and set it for 15% deviation which if more than that it lock out the device until the voltage went back to normal however it still blew fuse randomly so I set the phase loss monitor to 8% well at this setting it still blew a fuse every once in while
But this is still not an answer for this problem because with out the phase loss monitor there it would blow the IGBT module in the VFD drive
Of course management wants to know what is causing the problem
Now it is very difficult to put a meter on one phase and only look at that phase and know what is going on
So I talked to our management team about them buying a Fluke Bluetooth amp probe and I bought the Fluke multimeter and a amp probe as well now I can read all three phases at the same exact time with this information I found what the problem was which I had feel that this was the problem
The problem is that one phase would deviate more than 10% and switch to another phase
and would only happen when you ran the hoist up and down and moving the trolley back and forth
Which the trolley drive is the one with the VFD drive on it
Just running the trolley only was not a problem but when you ran both of at the same exact time then you would have the voltage loss and the unbalanced between the phases
I had to run this test a few times before I figured out what part of the wiring was causing the problem and found that the festoon cable was not heavy enough for the load that was being placed on it
This crane is not very new and this crane had contact-ors on it but the motor on the trolley gear box the motor shaft would wear out because our children where I work at want to jog the motor all time and because when I would look for a motor for I would not find the same rpm specifications that would match the other motor on the other trolley
With this setup just using contactors to control the two speed motor was fine the motor can handle unbalanced phases as long as they are short in duration But a VFD drive does not tolerate voltage problem like this very well unless you double the size of VFD drive which can not always be done because you do not have the space for a bigger drive
So having meters that can do meter logging by Bluetooth is important in this situation because I need to narrow down what was causing the problem with just replacing drives replacing all the wiring was not going to make the management team very happy taking that approach and was not the way I like to do things in the first place
The management team want testing results for a problem like this when it a intermittent problem like this before they want to spend money which I can not blame them for
https://youtu.be/FPksaFYixVQ
Are you going to try this out and see how well it works
I am going to give this a try I just bought the meter
I think I might just feed it straight to a micromite for now because I'm curious and there is nothing faster for such tests. Kinda swamped right now though....this country shuts down for Xmas, soon and I am not done.
Sometime after all this, despite my protests, since I was embarking on a fool-proof safety circuit before any further testing, they brought in a truck with a 3MVA generator trailer and a fuel trailer, on-site at great expense (rather than risk their generator). What did I do? I basically took a one week unscheduled holiday and let them wear the expenses of their folly because they thought that would pressure me into premature full-load testing. One little accident could result in extreme flash burn (imagine being your flesh cooked thoroughly and instantly) or exploding transformers and bus-bars at the very least. Obviously after that I distanced myself from the project which then failed to progress and the units are sitting in storage somewhere.
BTW, I realize this is going OT but I think we all know now that Fluke was good, could still be good, but you are certainly paying for the name and there is always better value for money and the same quality elsewhere. Personally I'd like to design tiny BLE scope/meter probes and use a phone/tablet at a distance while monitoring and capturing one or umpteen channels. Need more channels? Just clip on more probes.
“The hole reason for buying this meter was to use the Bluetooth function of on my iPad which it does work
I used the application for the 30 days and loved it but when I found out that you have pay for using it
BUT what I do not understand is WHY you have to pay $249.00 a year to be able to use the application really
It bad enough that this meter with this application is a little pricey but to have pay to use the application is annoying problem it does not need to be this way
Yes it has a free version of the software application but it will record the event but you can NOT save it and you can NOT review the results unless you pay for the application really
And is worthless for troubleshooting electrical problem on 3 phase when you can not review the results
While I had the 30 day free trial
I want to tell you about a problem that I was able to to troubleshoot with your meter and use the application
Where I work we have a overhead crane that has a intermittent problem with blowing a fuse on a VFD drive I need to figure out what was causing this problem so convenient our management team in buying a amp clamp on meter and I bought a multimeter and a clamp on meter
I used one meter on each phase and was able to find that I have a voltage drop and a unbalanced phase problem with a little more testing in different places on this crane I found where my voltage drop and unbalanced problem is and I am able to fix the problem
But only because I was able to review the application results I was able to see the voltage drop from the data
But what is also bad about this is that I only would use this application is when I have to troubleshoot a problem like this or something similar which might a couple times a year
I am very very disappointed in the Fluke has done this I would hope that they reconsider their thinking on this issue
Fluke meter disappoint user “
The Emperor's New Clothes syndrome, is what I call it. In this case, a low-cost product is not allowed to be anywhere near as good as the high-cost one.
The VC99 clearly wins but all he does is bad-mouth it....The comments section picked-up on this bias.
https://youtu.be/ZoeUgMFLyAw
Here is another one: This guy needs several Flukes, an Amprobe and a Brymen just to keep up with the features of the VC99 and look at the performance comparison.
And here again he has to harp-on about construction quality and glass fuses....alarmist claptrap to detract from the positives. He needs to look inside some of his kitchen appliances or his wife's/daughter's hair dryer.
https://youtu.be/Q23eArAsXmo
I wish Roy hadn't made me aware of Disingenuous Dave. I'm really quite livid. He's clearly getting some form of kickback from Fluke and his little Pied Piper routine seems to have had an awful lot of viewers pony-up for expensive Flukes through disinformation, scare tactics and propaganda.
There's some strong emotions starting to bubble up in this thread... please could we keep to facts and not poke others for having alternative opinions.
Thank you.
This is the response that I got ( in part )
I will call them on Monday and see if we can get this to work right I will let you know what the outcome is
Here is the data results from the the crane that has the voltage drop problem
You have to click the image to see the hole graph ( this test was done with both hoist and trolley motor activated at the same time )
As you can see in the graph that L1 has a dip and L3 has a voltage spike only L2 is mostly stable
Really weird that one leg would dip and another leg would spike in the same time frame
And as you can also see there seems to be a lot of noise on this data results
The phase loss monitor see this voltage fluctuations and sometimes respond to it and cut off the power to the VFD drive based on how you set up the device I have the time setting set to maximum delay and the voltage fluctuations set to about 8% the maximum setting is 15%
I have replaced the festoon power supply cable to the trolley and hoist motors because the wire gauge was #14 and replaced it with a #10 gauge wire ( this cable had been repaired a couple of times before any way )
I going to run this test again and see what the results are now with the heavier gauge wire and if there is any difference
I personally would not use it for high voltage measurements unless I took out current shunt and or put heat shrink tubing on the shunt
The dielectric strength of air is 3KV/mm.