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Electric motors tip: Verify the

cleanliness of your test leads
PdMA Corporation
Tags: motors, maintenance and reliability

When using test equipment to determine the health and reliability of your electric motors, it
is important to also verify the cleanliness of your test leads. Don't allow poor maintenance of
your test leads, clips and connectors to reduce the accuracy of the resistance measurement
readings. During calibration of the MCE test equipment, PdMA technicians often find test
leads with damaged clips or contaminated connectors from everyday usage in industrial
environments. Test leads, clips and connectors can be cleaned with an alcohol-based
product.

For the phase-to-phase resistance measurement, the advanced 4-wire bridge testing
performed by equipment like the MCE offers a reduced concern for test lead connections
because the effect of a variable test lead resistance is minimized using the 4-wire design.
However, contaminated connectors on test leads used for resistance-to-ground
measurements on motors under the test voltage stress of 1,000 to 5,000 volts can be an
issue, especially when performing acceptance testing on new or refurbished motors. New and
refurbished motors have resistance-to-ground readings in the thousands of Meg or Gigohm
range. Some even reach the million Meg or Teraohm range. The MCE provides ranges high
enough to measure these values, but to ensure accurate readings of resistance-to-ground at
such high levels, perform visual inspections of your test leads and connectors to identify any
deficiencies.

For more information on electric motor maintenance, visit the PdMA Corporation Web site at
www.pdma.com.

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