The company was familiar with their systems going down due to electrical system issues, the remote location and loss of productivity that typical relays fail to prevent. In this region, voltage and phase issues can be incredibly problematic. The area is remote, so the system load side is not constant and can result in fluctuating voltage that can cause motors to overheat and fail. When the number of pumps in the area’s operation varies, the load on the utility changes, which causes major voltage swings. If the voltage swings too low or high, then the motor will overheat and insulation will start to burn up faster than what was expected. The company was using two components for motor protection: a thermal overload and a voltage monitor. While the engineers were aware of the pumps going down, they were in the dark about the frequency, exact cause, and time of each occurrence. In the past, contractors had to troubleshoot the pump using clamp-on amp meters. It was not uncommon for them to travel to the site to test the pumping equipment, only to learn that there were no issues.

The company’s engineers tested products from many manufacturers. The other relays “had nowhere near the protection that the Littelfuse MP8000 has,” one of the company’s engineers said. “The Littelfuse relay was the first motor protection device they gave us to try out that had both voltage monitoring and overload protection in one, single device,” he said. “We used to have to use different devices for overload protection and phase protection and now we don’t.” After the MP8000s were installed, the company reported a 50 percent reduction in the number of calls claiming that the pump equipment was down. “The relay’s real-time data eliminated the need for assumptions about whether the equipment is functioning,” another one of the company’s engineers said.