New Industry Products

Power Quality Analyzer Eliminates Need for Dedicated Sensor Power Supply

July 01, 2019 by Scott McMahan

Hioki announced the launch of the Power Quality Analyzer PQ3198, a new instrument that revamps the functionality and specifications of its predecessor, the Power Quality Analyzer PW3198. According to Hioki, the product makes recording and analyzing power supply issues even easier, by enabling power and efficiency measurement of two circuits and by eliminating the need for a dedicated sensor power supply.

Power companies, electricians, electrical maintenance engineers, building maintenance companies, electrical safety associations, and equipment end-users can use PQ3198 for management of power quality and analysis of power supply issues.

Hioki asserts that as power circuits become more complex with increasing adoption of power electronics devices, large equipment, and geographically dispersed power supplies, power supply issues in the form of electronic device failures and malfunctions are becoming more common.

PQ3198 Power Quality Analyzer

Power quality analyzers record and analyze power supply quality to examine the causes of those and similar issues in the field.

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After HIOKI added functionality for powering current sensors to the PQ3100, there was increasing demand from customers to do the same for the flagship PW3198, which led HIOKI to redesign the model.

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Principal New Functionality

1. Can supply power to sensors, thereby eliminating the need for a dedicated power supply

The PQ3198 has the ability to supply power to ac flexible sensors and ac-dc sensors, eliminating the need to provide a separate, dedicated power supply for those devices that required one in the past. In addition to making allowing the use of the instrument in outdoor locations where power is not readily available, this capability reducing the number of wires needed to make measurements, making it easier to work in confined locations.

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PQ3198 with Drive AC flex sensor

2. Ability to measure power and efficiency on two circuits

The PQ3198 can simultaneously measure power and efficiency on two circuits. For example, it can do this in the primary (input) side and secondary (output) side of an EV rapid charger's ac-dc converter or in a solar power system.

The instrument can also measure dc-ac inverters with a fundamental frequency of 40Hz to 70Hz and a carrier frequency of 20kHz or less.

3. Remote measurement using FTP server functionality

The PQ3198 offers an FTP server function, making it easy to remotely acquire data from the instrument.

4. Extended recording without the need to worry about the number of events (power anomalies)

Whereas the previous model (the PW3198) could record a maximum of 1000 events, the PQ3198 boosts that number to 9999.

Moreover, using repeat recording settings, it can record continuously for up to 366 days.

5. Standard support for analysis with PQ ONE analytical software

The PQ3198 comes with PQ ONE, a popular analytical software package that also comes with the Power Quality Analyzer PQ3100. Functionality of the software includes the display of event statistics (to display events by date or time of day), EN50160 judgment (for evaluation, analysis, and judgment capabilities that comply with the EN50160 standard), and report generation.