Issue 164 November - December 2024Please note: The issue content below is just a summary of the articles in the printed magazine.
The articles are not available on-line.
Please refer to the printed magazine for the complete article.
COVER STORY
AVO’s Megger accredited service centre
One of the key decisions in buying a test instrument you rely on for work is the level of service and support available to ensure the instrument is always working and performing accurately. Whether it’s measuring for operational certainty or testing for compliance, keeping instruments at peak performance and within calibration is the only sure way to trust the results.
As the New Zealand agents for Megger, AVO New Zealand provides a service centre to ensure Megger buyers have all the servicing and calibration they need to get the most effective life out of each instrument every working day.
This includes a factory-grade calibration service for all their Megger customers and is offering factory-level servicing and calibration as the only Megger-certified service centre in Australasia.
AVO general manager, Daniel Hurley, says their Christchurch-based service centre provides all the back-up anyone investing in a Megger instrument could ever need.
“When you buy a Megger from our electrical wholesale partners, you gain immediate access to our accredited service centre (ASC) as if you were dealing directly with a Megger factory.
“As Megger’s Australasian ASC we have the technical capability and engineering back-up to do the kinds of repairs other service providers might struggle with. This means we can not only ensure the ongoing use of every Megger instrument for its rated life but also carry out repairs down to a component level. Because Megger supplies us with all the circuit diagrams and diagnostic software, we can easily replace a $15 component rather than the $300 board.”
Please refer to the printed magazine for the complete article
NEWS
Negotiating the standards minefield
The decision of Standards Australia’s EL-001 committee to expand the range of plugs and sockets used for the connection of power to caravans, boats and construction sites has raised serious issues over the funding of joint standard amendments.
In this case, four standards cited in Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulations have been proposed for amendment to accommodate the expanded plug range and the New Zealand regulator has declined to fund the share of the cost allocated to Standards NZ.
Standards Australia wants over $10,000 per standard from New Zealand to change a couple of words in each standard and Energy Safety WorkSafe has rejected this on the basis that the changes are not needed here, are unwise and potentially dangerous.
Irrespective of any technical merit in the proposed changes, the regulator does not agree that allowing plug and socket options to feed up to 800 amps into installations such as caravans is helpful to managing electrical safety risks. Allowing a multiplicity of plug current ratings and pin sizes might create a lot of design and installation flexibility, but it defeats the purpose of standardisation.
This issue highlights problems caused by standards committees that create changes contrary to the way electrical safety is regulated in New Zealand and raise the costs levied on Standards NZ every time Standards Australia decides to change a joint standard.
In this case, changes were proposed to the ratings of plugs and sockets permitted by AS/NZ 3012, 3001-1, 3002 and 3010.
They do not affect AS/NZS 3000: 2018 which remains uncited in New Zealand and is now out of date because of the backlog of changes Standards Australia wants to make and because the standards bodies have always wanted to put out a new edition every five years.
The EL-001 committee wants to continue with around 500 fixes and further amendments to the 2018 version before developing a new edition of AS/NZS 3000, as directed by the recently established executive committee.
This is creating unexpected costs for New Zealand where the regulator would rather invest in a new edition to deal with emerging safety risks and the implementation of new electrical technologies.
Please refer to the printed magazine for the complete article
Can health and safety consultants be relied on?
The first health and safety consultant prosecuted by WorkSafe for a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act has been found guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of $70,000 along with $28,403 for emotional harm and consequential loss and a contribution $15,460.11 toward WorkSafe’s legal costs.
The incident that gave rise to this case was first addressed in the New Plymouth District Court in 2022 where two family-operated agricultural companies with the same two directors and shareholders were fined $270,000 for ineffective workplace traffic safety after one of their workers was knocked unconscious by a moving vehicle in a 20 kph zone.
WorkSafe used the incident to rail against the use of ‘common sense’ in managing the safety of workers. This has relevance to every industry now that WorkSafe has determined that PCBUs instructing workers to use common sense when it comes to health and safety are giving poor advice.
In a press release headed “‘Use common sense’ – a poor approach to health and safety”, WorkSafe revealed how in August 2020 a worker was hit from behind and collected by the bucket of a telehandler, an all-terrain vehicle used for lifting loads.
The 61-year-old victim was knocked unconscious and hospitalised with bleeding in the skull. He was unable to work for nine months.
The WorkSafe investigation found a lack of traffic oversight was the chief health and safety failing.
Please refer to the printed magazine for the complete article
EWRB still pushing the industry to its limits
EWRB’s latest message to the industry, emailed 3 October, appears to finally admit that there may be a minor problem with the introduction of the new endorsements, while ignoring the several big hairy elephants in the room.
Clearly they know there's a problem, and they also know – because we've told them – exactly how to fix it. A parliamentary ‘withdraw and apologise’ is probably too much to expect, but the only way to fix all the related problems is clear: revoke the Gazette notice and start over – including proper consultation with industry.
But to do anything to fix a problem is to admit there is a problem, which leads to being seen to have stuffed up, and risk of someone being held responsible. So what we are seeing from EWRB is classic bureaucratic procrastination and obfuscation. In other words, dithering.
They only have to dither for a year or so, then they can say "it all worked out in the end", so there can’t have been any real problem at all. Never mind that even after the 'teething troubles’ are over, the new system will not, in fact cannot, do what it is expressly intended to do. And never mind that the worst problem is not the flawed system of practising licence endorsements, but the revised limits of work.
Please refer to the printed magazine for the complete article
NEWS
It’s not just culture
The most telling outcome from the EWRB’s handling of the death of a Nelson handyman and the prosecution of an electrical contractor over wiring work that led to the death, is the failure of the EWRB to address the wiring and testing risks at the centre of the case and issue immediate guidance to the industry on how to competently manage these risks to ensure electrical safety when old wiring practices are encountered.
This fatality occurred in 2020, and despite an official information request from ElectroLink, the EWRB has not issued any advice to the industry and competency course providers to promote the competence of all electricians and inspectors on handling re-sleeved conductors and testing new work on these old installations. (See ElectroLink March 2024 issue, page 2, ‘Ought to know’)
This failure shows how far the EWRB has drifted from its primary purpose under the Electricity Act to monitor, review and promote the ongoing competence and safe work practices of electrical workers.
Compounding this failure is the way the EWRB has shifted its disciplinary focus away from the inquisitorial model cited in the Act which gives the EWRB powers granted under the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1908, and is now running disciplinary hearings using a prosecutorial approach more like a court.
This approach is less focussed on bringing licence holders back into competence or ensuring the competence of their peers. It is now more focussed on crime and punishment and turning disciplinary hearings into a playground for lawyers who know little about electrical law.
If industry associations would like to remodel this approach and address electrical safety risks in a far more productive way than MBIE and WorkSafe have envisioned using their old prosecutorial models, then having a close look at how the aviation industry around the world draws out hidden and unreported risks with what it calls a ‘Just Culture’ model.
Please refer to the printed magazine for the complete article
COVER STORY
What is new with the EU machinery directives?
As we stated in part one of this article, in the last ElectroLink edition, the European Union (EU) has for over three decades legally mandated that many of the products sold there be compliant to its directives.
Importantly, the primary aim of EU directives is to ensure product safety for users, with product compliance being confirmed by a CE mark being affixed to that product.
The ‘Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC’ has been in force since December 2009 but is being phased out in favour of the ‘Machinery Regulation’, as it is often referred to. This Regulation will become law in the EU on 20 January 2027 and contains some very significant changes.
Are European directives relevant in New Zealand?
Before we look at what’s new, we need to point out that European directives related to industrial machinery, are not mandated in New Zealand.
It’s generally only those who export machinery into the European market that have a vested interest in changes to European legislation, as it directly impacts the products they sell.
Nevertheless, most manufacturers of electrical equipment will ensure all their products comply to EU directives, even when it’s sold outside the EU. This is already quite apparent as a great many products sold here carry the CE mark.
It’s therefore beneficial to be informed about what these directives mean. Furthermore, if a product has obtained a certain level of safety, albeit in another jurisdiction, it should at least give some level of confidence to prospective users.
Please refer to the printed magazine for the complete article
COVER STORY
Changing colours
Now that Christmas is just around the corner again and everyone seems to be unboxing those Christmas lights earlier every year, it is a good time to look at some of the ways that we can create and control coloured lighting.
Whether it be for your own backyard Christmas lighting display or a large infrastructure project or anything between, there are some attributes common to all projects large or small, such as the use of LEDs utilising the primary lighting colours of red, blue, green and optionally pre-mixed white. However, the vast array of options for controlling those LED chips can be bewildering and have some significant limitations that make them best suited to different scopes and project sizes.
Virtually all modern, coloured installations will utilise LED over traditional light sources, and LEDs with the ability to colour change are so ubiquitous and economically priced that unless there is a specific requirement for a single colour, using a source that can be changed to suit different requirements is usually the optimal decision.
Colour changing luminaires will generally also have the ability to control intensity through a form of dimming protocol. This variability in output gives designers and installers unprecedented scope for creating whatever vision the client may desire, but it also gives them post installation the ability to tweak the lighting to more closely match the requirements, either through getting colourings correct or intensity set to the right level.
This is important, as often the colour matching from what is envisioned to the final product can have a large value of discrepancy. Colour perception can change depending on the installation medium.
Please refer to the printed magazine for the complete article
Quantum dots for lighting
The only exposure most of us have had to quantum dots is when we go to buy a new television, where we are faced with the ever growing and bewildering choices including HD, UHD, OLED, LCD and in the last decade or so, the additional option of QLED.
Quantum dots however have been a technology on the cusp for over twenty years now. Originally speculation around the use of quantum dot LED technology had it overtaking traditional phosphor-based LEDs, (then itself an emerging technology) in every sphere.
As we know now, this was not to be, but they still break into headlines for upcoming technology every couple of years or so, and recently re-emerged as a focus yet again. What then is a quantum dot LED, how does it differ from what we have now, and why might it one day finally come to its full potential and eclipse the current LED technology?
Quantum dots are tiny semiconductor nanocrystals, typically just a few nanometers (nm) in size. The original commercially available Ams Osram quantum dot LED chip from around 2020 contained quantum dots as small as 10 atoms in diameter, about 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a single human hair. When excited by light, these quantum dots emit photons of a specific wavelength, determined by the size of the quantum dot. This size for colour process makes the colour output much more delineated and controllable than traditional phosphor-based LEDs.
Quantum dot LEDs have a very narrow bandwidth emission, leading to a high controllability of both colour rendering (CRI) and colour temperature (CCT). When the quantum dots are grown, just leaving them for extra growth time will increase the physical size and this will change their output colour.
As an example, growing a dot to 2 nm could make it a green output, but allowing that to increase to 5 nm may produce an output in red (Quantum dots skew toward red as their size increases).
Please refer to the printed magazine for the complete article
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