Capacitor discharge unit

The SD300 safely discharges stored energy in large capacitors and electrically-charged equipment.

By Staff November 7, 2007

The SD300 is a self-contained safe discharge device designed to protect the operator or test engineer from danger and the equipment-under-test from potential damage. The UL Listed device has been specifically designed to enable engineers to safely discharge high power capacitors used for power factor correction and energy storage applications in the wind turbine, power generation, petrochemical, oil and gas, processing and motor drive control industries.Until now no official or recognized means of safely discharging large capacitors in these applications has existed. The unit incorporates a number of special features to counter the common but unauthorized and highly dangerous practice of discharging high power capacitors with wires or screwdrivers.The instrument uses a long-life battery, and is designed for use in systems and equipment with a maximum voltage of 1,000 Vdc and maximum capacitance of 1,200 uF. Its failsafe design incorporates a two-handed push-button operation to initiate and maintain the energy discharge, ensuring that the operator cannot come into contact with the live circuit. The operator is totally isolated from the discharged energy by a fully insulated and robust IP66-rated instrument case.The self-contained instrument comes with fully shrouded, fused test leads and includes a built-in fuse and test lead self-test. Other safety features include an automatic pre-use self test, protection against prolonged connection to live operating circuits and monitoring of critical component temperatures with automatic cutoff. Once activated, the stored energy is discharged in 30 seconds with visual indication of the stored energy state provided by analog meters and LEDs. Seaward Group USA www.seaward-groupusa.com