Seaward cooks up safety test success at leading catering manufacturer

Lincat, which designs and produces equipment including ovens, grills and fryers, has introduced two HAL 104s on the production lines at its factory in Lincoln where the Silverlink 600 and Lynx 400 ranges of electric counter-top and free-standing catering units are manufactured.

Upwards of 200 of these units are produced and tested each week for supply to the professional catering sector in the UK and across the world.

The HAL 104s, which are designed for the fast and accurate electrical tests required by modern manufacturing environments, are undertaking pre-programmed single phase testing to ensure compliance with BS EN 60335 and guarantee product quality, performance and reliability.

The instruments have been introduced to provide more uniformed testing - every appliance is now tested for the same length of time and under identical conditions.

This ensures standardisation throughout the test life cycle and with bar-coding provided for improved traceability, any future quality issues can be quickly identified and rectified saving time and costs in the process.

Stephen Kendall, production engineer at Lincat, expects to introduce further HAL 104s in the near future for faster and more accurate safety testing across the entire production process.

He added: “The HAL 104 is an excellent instrument, which works very well providing fast, accurate and reliable testing.

“From a testing perspective, it offers peace-of-mind because it produces standard test results and traceability is an added benefit which contributes to improved after sales support and customer service.”

The HAL 104 combines the performance of a multi-function production line safety tester with load and power factor measurement for product energy consumption and ratings assessments.

The instrument meets the end of line electrical safety compliance tests required by the majority of national and international product safety standards.

As well as load and power functional tests, the new tester incorporates AC/DC Hipot (flash / dielectric strength), insulation, ground/earth bond testing to 40A, load switching to 26A with measurement to 20 milliamps and leakage to 100 microAmps.

The new tester has widespread applications in production situations where high resolution performance measurements are important and can be used as a manual stand alone tester with simple push button test activation.

Alternatively, it can be fully integrated into automated manufacturing systems with selectable sensors and enclosure interlocks, or by ultimate control using remote PCs and PLCs.

A large, clear full graphic display presents information either in a numerical or analogue format and a powerful internal memory allows the storage of up to 6,000 test results and up to 50 configurable test routines. The instrument can also be interfaced with a variety of accessories ranging from bar code scanners to pass/fail label printers.

The HAL 104 meets all of the requirements of the various British and European standards in relation to high voltage testing and incorporates fully isolated high voltage outputs to ensure the highest levels of operator safety.