«The CMC 500 is a wise financial investment for today’s testing tasks. If requirements change in the future, the device can easily be upgraded.» Christopher Pritchard, Product Management Lead, OMICRON thought into simplifying the rewiring process during testing, streamlining operations, and enhancing user safety. Another key area of concern for our customers has been cybersecurity. The requirements have increased dramatically in recent years, and unsurprisingly, much of the expertise from our cybersecurity products has been incorporated into the CMC 500. This has led to it setting a new benchmark in cybersecurity standards. Additionally, we recognized the importance of ensuring that existing test plans for Test Universe and RelaySimTest would also be compatible with the CMC 500. We made this a priority, knowing it would be crucial for our customers’ ongoing operations. How did you incorporate such extensive requirements into a single product? We designed and built the device from scratch, including entirely new current and voltage generators. I’m amazed by how much we’ve been able to pack into our convertible generator modules. Their output accuracy is exceptionally high. They’re extremely powerful with amplitudes of up to 300 V and 30 A and frequencies reaching 5 kHz, a technical achievement we take great pride in. For instance, our high-current module can output 60 A per channel, and in a singlephase setup, it can generate up to 180 A. By paralleling the outputs of all modules, we can even generate up to 450 A. We came up with an intelligent thermal concept to squeeze all these features into as small a space as possible and completely redesigned the housing. These insights made it evident that we needed to design a field-ready device that not only could test protection relays, but also had the capabilities required for testing other key assets in the protection chain — a truly versatile system. Given our customers’ diverse needs and requirements, we decided to move away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach and instead developed a platform with five different variants, each tailored to specific application areas. Beyond versatility, what other aspects were most important to the customers you spoke with? One critical issue that emerged from our discussions was user safety during testing. Customers have become more focused on complying with safety standards, such as EN 50191 in Europe, which outlines the requirements for constructing and operating both fixed and temporary electrical test installations. In response, we’ve put significant 8
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTkxNzY=