Hipotronics, Inc.'s CET-1500 capacitive discharge cable fault locator ("thumper") has controlled (constant) energy over a wide voltage range. The unit is suitable for testing a wide variety of EPR, XLPE, and PILC cables, and fills a market void between portable, roll-around units and much larger/heavier units typically used only for PILC cable.
The CET-1500 is an improvement over existing fault locators in that the operator can output up to 1500J of energy at 8, 16, or 32 kV. In addition, the operator can control the amount of voltage from 0 V to full range. The controlled energy capacity is quite helpful in that an operator can still deliver a large amount of energy to the fault without having excessive voltage. In fact, at 8 kV the unit will deliver 6 times the energy compared to older units. This allows discharge (thump) voltages to be greatly reduced while still allowing sufficient energy for acoustical or magnetic pinpointing.
The unit can be interfaced to Hipotronics and other manufacturer’s HV couplers and HV TDRs to make a complete fault locating package. Thus outfitted, its capabilities are complementary to roll-around portable fault location systems available from a variety of manufacturers.
