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Phase Angle Meter, To keep an AC power supply in phase

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How do you use a phase angle meter, and what do you use them for?

At work we use a North Atlantic Model 213 Phase angle meter to measure a AC power supply with it's reference with the wall? what reference do you use?

I'm not to sure how to hook it up

Do you put the Phase angle meter direct on the output of a AC power supply without any load resistor?

How do you hook up the phase angle meter to a reference?

The phase angle meter has to measure the 120 volts AC out of the wall and measure the phase angle of the voltage, it should be Zero degrees but it might be off some degrees , so you have to match the AC power supply phase angle with the wall 120 volts phase angle is?

The AC power supply we use has a switch that is zero degrees or 180 degrees , you have to keep both polarity's/degrees with the phase angle meter to make sure it's dead on the money, if it's off degree , the reference or the wall's voltage phase is not in phase
 
The North Atlantic 213C Phase Angle Voltmeter is designed to measure both phase angle and magnitude of complex ac signals and vector components with respect to a reference voltage. The 213C is optimized for operation at a pre-specified input frequency within the range of 30 Hz to 10 kHz. The 213C features direct or transformer-coupled inputs for both the signal and the reference inputs. Voltmeter ranges from 300 uV to 300 V are selectable for inputs from 10 Hz to 100 kHz (transformer-limited) in Total mode. As a phase-sensitive null meter, nulling sensitivity of 2 uV is achieved.
 
I don't have one. I was looking at the descriptions.
I think internally it has a 30 to 10khz reference.
Or it can use an external reference. 10 to 100khz.
 
Yes it does have an internal reference

But I ment have do you get the Phase angle Reference?

My Manager said that you put the phase angle meters probes direct into the wall socket to measure the phase angle , it should be Zero Degrees at 120VAC

And then you put the phase angle meters probes on the output of an AC power supply to measure the phase angle to make sure it's at Zero Degrees

I'm not sure how to use a phase angle meter like this , is this the correct way of this or do you need a resistor LOAD so you don't blow up the phase angle meter?
 
the OP said:
My Manager said that you put the phase angle meters probes direct into the wall socket to measure the phase angle , it should be Zero Degrees at 120VAC

Well, that sounds "sort of silly" but probably not really because of the sensitivity. You have to have a load to measure the phase angle, so it's OK to calibrate to "0 degrees" with no external load but the meter itself. Then the measurement can look at the phase angle of the added load.
 
How do you guys check if your AC power supply is in phase at zero degrees? or at 180 degree dead on the money?

My Manager said that if the phase angle is off by degrees, that all your voltage measurements are a phase angle voltage not a true voltage

I not sure what to call a "normal voltage" that is not the "magnitude" voltage of a phase angle degree

If the Degrees is at 2 or 5 degrees, than the AC voltage is a Magnitude phase angle voltage and not a Normal Voltage at Zero degrees
 
Never thought I would hear about one of those again, been over 40 years. My experience with the North Atlantic 213 (and others) was mostly with the NAVAIR community used for testing / checking various synchro and servos at 400 Hz. Been a long time but if I remember any of this stuff the 213 has a very wide power input frequency. You should have a manual on the thing. Anyway, something like 120 / 240 Volt +/- 10% with a line frequency between 45 and 440 Hz. When an internal reference is selected you get the line frequency. The beauty of the thing was it could be powered off aircraft power (400 Hz) and check synchro transmitters and servos. For the day they were one hell of a meter. Anyway, I think the internal reference was whatever the line frequency was.

That said if I have a US line frequency of 60 Hz and I have a power supply frequency that is synched to line it becomes easy to look at a power supply output and measure the phase angle of the reference. Again, it has been a long, long time.

My last experience using a PAV was testing a few 40 volt brushless synchros a few years ago.

Most of what you are asking should be covered in the manual. I see manuals online for about $25 and know NAI is still in the business of making high end phase angle voltmeters.

Ron
 
testing / checking various synchro and servos at 400 Hz

What do you use the phase angle meter to check or test for synchro and servos?

What were u using the phase angle meter to do with servos and synchro?
 
How do you guys check if your AC power supply is in phase at zero degrees? or at 180 degree dead on the money?

Do you mean the AC that is coming out of the wall? I have never checked it, and can't imagine why I would ever need to do so.

That being said, if you have 3 phase AC in your building, and you're connecting up a motor, then you do need to know the sequence. Because if you get the phase sequence wrong, your motor will run backwards. But the phase angle between any two of the voltages will be always be 120 degrees. If not, then your power company has a BIG problem.

There is no error in measuring a single AC voltage. The problem your manager is refering to is when you are measuring voltage and current to trying to calculate power. If there is a phase shift between the two measurments then the product of the two will be the aparent power, not see the true power.

The only time I have ever used a phase angle meter was for a lab assignment back in school. The lab was to check different components (resistive, capacitive, and inductive) to see what effect they had on phase shift. The referrence was the output of a signal generator, and the measurement was the other side of the component.
 
Do you mean the AC that is coming out of the wall? I have never checked it, and can't imagine why I would ever need to do so.

Yes you use the AC out of the wall as your Reference

You put the phase angle meter on the output of the AC power supply and compare the AC frequency and phase angle with the Reference?


The referrence was the output of a signal generator, and the measurement was the other side of the component.

Does the reference have to be the same frequency and phase angle as the component you're measuring?
 
Yes you use the AC out of the wall as your Reference

You put the phase angle meter on the output of the AC power supply and compare the AC frequency and phase angle with the Reference?




Does the reference have to be the same frequency and phase angle as the component you're measuring?

So you have an AC power supply in addition to what comes out of the wall? What is it and how does it generate the new AC? Is it just a transformer, or does it construct it's AC output from scratch?

The reference and the AC output you are measuring must be at exactly the same frequency, or the phase angle you are trying to measure will be constantly changing.

A phase angle meter measures that angle by looking at the zero crossing point of the two signals. The phase angel is the difference in time between those zero two crossings as a percentage of one period.
 
Sounds like your talking about a power factor meter, the sort of thing found in a substation.

A pf of 1 means no phase shift, energy suppliers here in the uk charge industrial consumers if their pf is less than 0.8, they call it 'reactive energy charge', its happened here a couple of times when one of the pf correction machines caps went short.
 
What do you use the phase angle meter to check or test for synchro and servos?

What were u using the phase angle meter to do with servos and synchro?

Used a PAV to check the Index and phase sequence out of new synchros used in a government application.

Ron
 
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