Yokogawa Test & Measurement announces that its Precision AC Power Calibrator, the LS3300, now has the optional function of added harmonic output.
The LS3300 Precision AC Power Calibrator outputs highly accurate and stable power calibration signals — now including harmonics — for greater efficiency and productivity of power meter calibration workflows, making it the most versatile and user-friendly precision AC power calibrator in its class. This enables superimposed harmonic signals without degrading fundamental accuracy, up to the 51th harmonic (depending on configuration), and controlled phase, amplitude and frequency, among others.
Engineering and QA managers, calibration engineers, metrologists in manufacturing inspection, high-power electronic device makers, and public and private calibration labs stand to benefit from the enhanced instrument, by confidently addressing their calibration demands without compromising on accuracy, space, or budget.
Real-world AC power waveforms often exhibit distortion due to harmonics—integer multiples of the fundamental frequency—that can compromise power quality, leading to adverse effects in systems and components and, ultimately, their malfunction and even failure. As high-power electronic devices—inverters, drives, switching supplies, and others—become more widely used, especially in consumer and industrial applications, harmonic distortion becomes a growing concern. Harmonics lower energy efficiencies, cause overheating in electrical components and failures in sensitive equipment, shorten lifespans and lead to non-compliance with power quality standards such as IEEE and others, making it even more important to control and suppress them.
High-end power calibrators can generate harmonics to simulate real-world power conditions and enable accurate testing and calibration of power quality analyzers. However, they are costly and complex to operate. Basic calibrators and AC power supplies are suitable for fundamental frequency (e.g., 50/60 Hz) testing, but cannot provide traceable reference that includes accurate harmonic content. Overall, this calls for a practical, easy-to-use and cost-effective solution that can generate reliable AC waveforms with harmonic content, accurately.
The enhanced LS3300 is a versatile instrument that provides stable and accurate outputs of voltage, current, and phase, thus helping to calibrate more types of devices with one compact instrument. For high volume testing it can be synchronized with other units, to emulate single or three-phase systems, further expanding the range of products to be calibrated to various standards, including the IEC. The Yokogawa LS3300 provides intelligent synchronization for three-phase output via a master/slave multi-unit system.
Up to three units can be synchronized this way, to control various settings. The setup enables the calibration of three-phase AC power measurement devices and supports high-current applications up to 180 A.
With the LS3300, metrology labs and calibration teams can meet increasingly strict power quality testing demands, improve productivity and ROI by not using separate harmonic generators, and comply with current and future compliance specifications and standards. They are also enabled to offer more comprehensive services without having to upgrade to bulky, complex, high-end systems.
