Title :
PC-based trolley test instrument
Author :
Barkand, Thomas D.
Author_Institution :
US Dept. of Labor, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Abstract :
The author describes the design of a trolley test instrument based on an IBM-XT-compatible, single-board computer and plug-in A/D (analog/digital) converter card. The CMOS technology used for the single-board computer reduces the power consumption from the portable battery pack. The operating system and computational algorithm were burned into EPROM (electrically programmable ROM) to eliminate the disk drive and provide rugged nonvolatile program execution. The trolley tester collects the voltage and current parameters during trolley surveys and then calculates the available fault current, time constant, and appropriate circuit-breaker settings. The hardware design, software coding, and laboratory testing of the instrument are discussed. A simplified method for burning the operating system and computational algorithm into EPROM is shown.<>
Keywords :
automatic test equipment; computerised instrumentation; electric current measurement; microcomputer applications; voltage measurement; CMOS technology; EPROM; IBM-XT-compatible single-board computer; PC-based trolley test instrument; appropriate circuit-breaker settings; available fault current; computational algorithm; current measurement; operating system; plug-in A/D convertor card; rugged nonvolatile program execution; software coding; time constant; voltage measurement; Analog computers; Analog-digital conversion; Batteries; CMOS technology; Circuit testing; EPROM; Energy consumption; Instruments; Operating systems; Portable computers;
Conference_Titel :
Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, 1989., Conference Record of the 1989 IEEE
Conference_Location :
San Diego, CA, USA
DOI :
10.1109/IAS.1989.96852
