IR scanning

[the blur]

I have a question about IR scanning.... because I do not get involved in it.
I'm thinking you will only get valid results if the panel is heavily loaded. Like during the summer time, with all the A/C running. Otherwise, under winter load conditions, the results are not a true representation, because the hot spots may not show.

This one commerial customer was inquiring, and said his winter demand is half of his summer demand. 100KW vs 50KW of demand. He has 50 tons of A/C @ 208 volts. So wouldn't it make sense to do the IR scan in the middle of August, when it's 95 degrees outside ??

 

[zog]

Yes, best to be as fully loaded as possible.

 

[the blur]

Then it would be fair to say, in the Northern states doing an IR scan in the winter time would yield invalid results..... if the load considered includes A/C during the summer months.

 

[tkb]

I have a question about IR scanning.... because I do not get involved in it.
I'm thinking you will only get valid results if the panel is heavily loaded. Like during the summer time, with all the A/C running. Otherwise, under winter load conditions, the results are not a true representation, because the hot spots may not show.

This one commerial customer was inquiring, and said his winter demand is half of his summer demand. 100KW vs 50KW of demand. He has 50 tons of A/C @ 208 volts. So wouldn't it make sense to do the IR scan in the middle of August, when it's 95 degrees outside ??

If the heat is on different circuits from the AC then you should IR in both summer and winter.

 

[kwired]

When to scan depends on the place where scan is to take place. During peak operation times gets most items, but there may be loads that operate off peak that you will not get any meaningful information about. Say we have a production area that normally has certain machines in use but maybe there is a set up or clean up time of the process that runs different machines or a different combination of machines you may not get everything you may be looking for.

Heating and cooling loads will only catch whatever is used at the time, and may not catch much if during a period when heating or cooling load is low demand.

Bottom line is you need to know what is desired to scan and schedule scan for optimum time to get best results - may even require scheduling more than one time to get everything.