INTERPRETING THE READINGS:
Applying Specifications
to Readings

Specification: A document, created during the many sittings of a Bunch Of Guys, Supposed Experts, Around a Table, with the intention of hopefully getting everyone to conform to like-minded thinking.

Expert: Ex = 'has-been', Spurt = drip under pressure

So, if this is a spec, there are good grounds to debate whether what is written, or what it is written on, is the more valuable. In my opinion, the best thing that happens to specifications is their usually exorbitant price that keeps them out of the public arena. If one was truly of any worth, someone would fund the above mentioned commitee and make the findings public domain!

As is, specs are usually nothing more than these groups of guys (and gals, lest someone think I'm sexist!) writing down what is real life anyway. Also, as life is in itself a dynamic subject means that as things change so do the specifications that reflect it. Therefore, specs can be no better than one step behind!

And, anyone who has been around long enough will know what is right and wrong purely because that is what life dictates, and does not need a piece of paper to tell them this!

Conversely; The moment someone does not know what they're talking about they broadcast this fact through hiding behind specifications, quoting them all the time. Throw a controversial statement in their direction and they start revealing an impressive array of memorised specifications while not realizing how they tie themselves in knots by contradicting one specification with another.

I find this extremely humorous to watch. Please don't think me coldhearted as I do pity the customers of these people that have landed up in the mess they're in purely through this incompetence. But, you have to admit, it is fun seeing someone suddenly realize they have got themselves into a tight spot through sheer arrogance, and don't know how to get out through a lack of experience!

One of the really hammered on specs is one known as EN 50160. But for a spec that is so widely quoted it is amazing, when asking an 'expert', what does this relate to and the answer is "voltage". When pushed further by asking "where", the answer is "anywhere". WRONG! This spec is only valid at one point, the incoming meter point!

Because the spec shows the point at which it is valid, the local electricity supply companies also claim this to be the final point in the chain for which they are responsible. When a client has a problem, it does not take long to guess how far they test - and then have the audacity to state "we're ok, Jack. It's your problem". How more unprofessional could you get!

There is one electricity supply company I know that is worth being called that, and that is the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) of the Republic of Ireland. They have made it a policy to become responsible from the generation through to the plug point in the house. When a client has a problem, the buck stops with them. I can personally vouch for this as I had reason to call them with a severe flicker complaint - and they sorted it out, promptly!

It must not be forgotten that specifications are humanly devised, universally adopted solutions. As said in a previous section, it may have even been a single solution to a single situation, and was probably found by mistake too!

I am a little less harsh about recommendations. These could be classed as 'not-quite specifications' and are good 'starting points' when faced with certain PQ cases. The documents P28 (flicker), and G5/4 (harmonic content) are superb examples of this.

The whole idea of these documents is they publish for the user of power a set of boundaries or limits of various parameters such that the general power quality is not impacted to the detriment of fellow users. As they are recommendations, and not specifications, the view is one of giving guidance as to what is acceptable, and the boundaries and limits change depending on the size of user.

The reason I am more accepting of these documents is they (the good ones, that is!) are not shy to state how and why they arrived at the figures they do. Specifications tend to say "thou shalt..", recommendations say "we discovered that.." and therefore become less threatening and have a greater acceptance in the field. However,....

The secret of my success as a diagnostician is when it comes to tracing faults, throw the rule-book away! I know you weren't expecting this, but it is the best advice you could ever adhere to!

(.....and don't ask what you do without a rule-book because it will show that you have not been reading the rest of this one!)

Presenting the Findings  >>


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© 27.08.03