We are in section 5.4, Troubleshooting Strategies.

Observation and equipment history are important in

troubleshooting complex circuits and there's a couple of things that can be looked at. First of all, we'll
mention logbooks. Logbooks often can provide a history of component failure. It provides the ability to
track specific high failure items and often if there is a history with a given system and it's been well
documented it will be found that there are very specific items that frequently fail. If a technician has
access to this kind of information frequently, he'll be able to go in and rather than spend many, many
hours diagnosing a problem. He can look at, well this is the high failure items and just go specifically to
those items and see well are those defaults at this point?
Also a technician experience. Those who have prepared specific systems get a sense of what fails and
are able to quickly solve those faults and anyone who has worked on a specific system for any length of
time you begin to be able to observe those weaknesses that are in the system. You begin to develop a
knack for quickly identifying the problem vice a person who has never worked on the system and they
have to spend a great deal of time identifying a fault.
Troubleshooting fences are used to identify suspected components in a faulty circuit. This term fence,
the idea is that you define boundaries concerning where the fault is located. There are lots of ways to
describe this. Your techs use this term called fences and the idea on this over here, we see these blue
brackets that are showing an entire system. The idea of fences is that you isolate the problem areas and
in this case, down below here now we have bracketed in two areas that potentially are the failure items.
Through testing we've been able to rule out these other items as being part of the problem. Now we have
isolated it down to this item and that's the idea of using fences.
Troubleshooting strategies. Equal probability trouble shooting is a technique that allows you to make a
few initial observations and then move troubleshooting fences to include only one or two suspected
components. Well, how do you do that? Within the lifetime of a system, certain components tend to fail
more often than others and that's what we had talked about on the previous slide. Using this information
the probability of a failure being a repeat event can lead to faster diagnosis and repair and as was
mentioned in the previous page, logbooks, technicians experience will aid in being able to quickly
diagnose a problem.
Split-half troubleshooting. This technique allows you to locate defects with a few measurements.
Essentially the technique involves splitting the circuit path into halves and troubleshooting from the
middle of the first half then the second half and so on. The idea is here if you have the circuit and there's
many potential test points, you measure at the halfway point. If the signal is good at this point, and you
have to know what is a good signal and what is a bad signal, but if you measure here and you have a
good reading you know, the problem is probably over here. If the signal is bad, then you would go back
and look at this area and then again, you do more tests. This is essentially, what we had talked about, I
believe it was in chapter one, were we talked about the idea of divide and conquer.
Signal tracing and signal injection. Again, these were mentioned in chapter one and we would again
mention them here. Signal tracing and signal injection are useful techniques when used with the split
half troubleshooting method that was from the previous slide. Instead of tracing or injecting the signal
from the beginning point of a circuit, the signal is introduced and traced from mid points within the
circuit. If the output is good when a good signal is injected at the midpoint, then the second half of the

circuit can be ruled out. The fault must be in the first of the circuit, and the idea in this particular case,
and we just looked at this one. The idea would be to inject a known good signal at this point where the
signal that should be here and then to evaluate is the signal the signal processed and do we have the
correct signal here. If we do not then we know something is afoul in this area.
Component substitution. Once the system has been analyzed and the source of the defect found the
suspected defective component should be substituted to confirm its status. You find a component that
you suspect is bad then you replace it. The component that you have replaced at any rate needs to be
disposed of. You do not want components that are either suspected to be defective or are defective in
with components that are known good. Substituted components that do not fix the system should be
discarded to prevent their reintroduction into the system. Installing and un-installing components can
damage them and this is even in the event that you have components that are good, you install them and
you taken them from the system those components should not be reused. Semiconductors are relatively
inexpensive and they can be damaged by putting them into a circuit, taking them out of a circuit, so it's
better to just dispose of those and not to put those in with your known good components.
In-circuit testing of components, and this is the idea that sometimes you can test components while they
are in the circuit. In some cases, the components of a circuit may be tested while still in the circuit. Open
some shorts, may be detected with an ohmmeter while the component is still in the circuit. Specialized
test equipment is also available for specific component in circuit testing and this is a common practice
where you actually measure the components in circuits. It's often a tricky thing though because when
you measure a process specific component, often times that component is in parallel with other
components and so the reading that you would expect with that out of the circuit and what is in-circuit is
often very different. You have to really know what you are doing in order to do this effectively.
This wraps up our look at troubleshooting. We finished off talking about testing components while they
are in the circuit. We've looked at circuit substitution, briefly looked at signal tracing and injection, splithalf trouble shooting. This was the divide and conquer from the first chapter, troubleshooting strategies
and we started here on this page, we talked about defenses and that observation and equipment history
are important in troubleshooting complex circuits. We looked at logbooks, technician experience. All of
these things will contribute to being a good troubleshooter. Probably one of the major things that makes
a person a good troubleshooter is just simply experience, being exposed to a system, working on it and
your troubleshooting skills will grow from that experience.
Electrical Industrial Troubleshooting
By Larry Bush

Troubleshooting In The Field - Motor Testing - Motor Controller - Programmable Logic Controllers
(PLC)
A laptop computer with PLC programming, communication, and operating programs are a necessary
tool in today's modern plant. Engineers, production supervisors, maintenance supervisors, maintenance

technicians, electricians, instrument technicians, and maintenance mechanics all need to have PLC and
computer knowledge, training and skills in troubleshooting.
On the job training on PLC's is usually not very effective until the person being trained has reached a
certain level of expertise in several areas. Knowledge and skills in electricity, troubleshooting, and
computer operation are necessary prerequisites to effectively assimilate basic PLC training. The author
found that long term retention of material studied was higher from a vocational course taken at a local
junior college than from a fast-paced, cram-course through a manufacturer.
The manufacturer's course covered essentially the same material as a course at the junior college (JC).
The major differences were the amount of study time and shop time. The JC course was four hours of
class time per week for 15 weeks. There were three hours of shop time doing actual hands on work of
the problems and material covered in the first hour. Additional time was spent at home studying the
manual and writing programs. Also, the JC was open at night for extra shop time on the PLC's and
computers.
In contrast, the manufacturer's course was five, eight hour days. Class work was extremely fast and
condensed in order to cover the amount of material involved. The instructor was very knowledgeable
and covered the course material as we tried to input the programs into desktop training equipment in
order to see how it worked. By the end of each day, our minds were jammed with information. By the
end of the week, we all passed the course, but I had a hard time remembering what we had studied on
the first day.
Basic troubleshooting techniques apply to every situation and occupation. Positive identification of the
problem(s) is absolutely essential to solving the problems. Many times, the inexperienced troubleshooter
will mistake one or more of the symptoms for the problems. Solving the symptom(s) will normally just
postpone the problems to a later date. By which time, the problems may have grown to mountainous
proportions.
An example is when a person experiences a headache and takes a mild pain reliever, such as aspirin. The
actual problem might be any number of things: eyes need to be checked, medication or lack of
medication, muscle strain, stress, tumor, blood vessel blockage, or old war injury. The same thing occurs
in industry, a fuse in a circuit blows and the maintenance person gets the replacement fuse and inserts it
into the fuse holder. There are many things that could have caused the fuse to blow, depending on the
complexity of the circuit.
Excess current caused the fuse to open (blow). Excess current could have been caused by: overload on
the load; short circuit between the wires, grounded wires, short circuit in the load, ground in the load,
voltage spike, voltage droop, etc. If the maintenance person does not troubleshoot the circuit prior to
replacing the fuse and restoring power, negative consequences could arise.
It is not uncommon for a process to develop a number of small problems and continue to function at a
degraded level of operational capability. Then, one more small problem occurs and the whole process
breaks down. Finding and correcting the last problem will not necessarily restore the operational
capability of the process. The process continued operations with the small problems, but the small
problems may not allow the process to restart from a dead stop. All the other small problems must be
identified and corrected before the process is restored to full operational capability.
This situation arises in industry as well as a person. The person can continue to function with a number
of small problems, such as fatigue, blood pressure problems, hardening of the arteries, artery blockage,
but one more small blood clot in the wrong place could easily cause the death of the person. Clearing the
blood clot does no good to the person. They will not be restored to full operational capability.
Troubleshooting In The Field:
Unless prior experience dictates otherwise, always begin at the beginning.
Ask questions of the Operator of the faulty equipment:
* Was equipment running when problem occurred?
* Does the Operator know what caused the problem, and if so, what, in their opinion, caused the
problem?
* Is the equipment out of sequence?
* check to ensure there is power

* turn on circuit breaker, ensure motor disconnect switch is on, and operate start button/switch
Use voltmeter to check the following at incoming and load side of circuit breaker(s) and/or fuses, ensure
that voltages are normal on all legs and read voltage to ground from each leg:
* main power, usually 460 VAC between phases and 272 to ground
* control & power, 208/240 between phases and 120 to ground and 120 VAC to neutral on a grounded
system
* low voltage control power, usually 24 to 30 VAC and/or VDC between phases and possibly to ground,
usually negative is connected to ground
Check controlling sensors in area of problem, then make complete check of all sensors, limit switches
and other switches to ensure they are in correct position, have power, are programmed, set, and are
functioning correctly.
If and when a problem is found, whether electrical or mechanical, the problem should be corrected and
the fault-finding begun anew, a seemingly unrelated fault or defect could be the cause of the problem.
When there is more than one fault, the troubleshooting is exponentially more difficult, do not assume
that all problems are solved after completing one, always test the circuit and operation prior to returning
the equipment to service.
If available, check wiring diagrams and PLC programs to isolate problem.
Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) can be reset by turning power off, wait till screen is blank and restore
power; on some VFD's, press Stop/Reset - then press Start.
Check that wiring is complete and that wires and connections are tight with no copper strands crossing
from one terminal to another or to ground.
Ensure that the neutral reading is good and that the neutral is complete and not open.
Motor Testing In Shop:
Prior to connecting a motor:
* move motor to electric shop motor test and repair station
* connect motor leads for 460 volt operation and wrap connections with black electrical tape
* check motor windings with an ohmmeter, each reading between phases should be within one or two
ohms of each other; A to B, B to C, A to C
* use megohmmeter to check insulation resistance to ground of motor windings on 500 volt scale;
minimum reading is 1000 ohms of resistance per volt of incoming power that motor will be connected to
* connect motor to power test leads and safety ground after checking that test lead power is shut off;
secure motor to table to prevent motor from jumping when started; turn disconnect on; press start button;
check "T" leads for motor amperage; check for abnormal sounds and heat in bearings or windings; clean
motor shaft; shut down and disconnect
Motor Testing In Field:
When a motor overload or circuit breaker trips and/or blows fuses, certain procedures and tests should
be carried out:
* lockout and tagout main circuit breaker;
* test insulation resistance of motor wires and windings by using megohmmeter between T1, T2, & T3
leads and ground, then;
* test "T" leads to motor with ohmmeter for continuity and ohmage of windings between A to B, B to C,
A to C; each resistance should be within 1 or 2 ohms of each other; if the ohms readings are significantly
different, or, if there is no continuity; go to the motor disconnect box, turn it off, perform the continuity
and resistance test on the "T" leads, again; if the readings are good, the problem is in the wires from the
motor controller to the disconnect switch;
* check the three wires by disconnecting all three wires from switch and twist together; go to controller
and check for continuity between A to C, B to C, A to C; one or more wires will be open or grounded;
* correct solution is to pull all new wires in from controller to motor disconnect switch, whatever caused
the problem may have damaged the other wires, also, replace all wires
* if problem is on motor side of disconnect switch, open motor connection box and disconnect motor;

* check motor for resistance to ground with megohmmeter, if reading is below 500,000 ohms, motor is
grounded and must be replaced;
* test motor windings for ohms between phases with ohmmeter A to B, B to C, A to C, readings should
be within 1 or 2 ohms of each other; if readings indicate open or a significant ohmage difference, replace
motor;
* if motor test readings are good, test the motor leads between the disconnect switch and the motor
connection box for continuity and ground resistance, if readings are not good, replace wires;
* if all readings are OK, reconnect motor, remove lockout, and restore to service; the problem could
have been mechanical in nature; an overload on motor caused by the chain, belt, bad bearings, faulty
gearbox, or power glitch.
Motor Controller:
* check motor Full Load Amps (FLA) at motor and check setting on controller overload (OL) device;
most newer OL devices are adjustable between certain ranges, some older OL devices use heaters for a
given amperage
* if circuit disconnecting means in controller is a circuit breaker, it should be sized correctly
* if the disconnecting means is a Motor Circuit Protector (MCP), the MCP must be correctly sized for
the motor it is protecting and the MCP has a trip setting unit which has to be correctly set based on the
Full Load Amperage of the motor; using a small screwdriver, push in on the screw head of the device
and move to a multiple of thirteen of the FLA; example: a motor FLA of 10 amps would require that the
MCP trip device be set to an instantaneous trip point of 130 amps
* fuses protecting the motor should be the dual element or current limiting type and based on the motor
FLA
Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC):
* check to ensure main power is on( 120 VAC
* check 24V power available
* identify problem area
* check sensor operation in problem area
* check sensor Inputs to PLC
* check on PLC that a change in sensor state causes the corresponding Input LED on the PLC to go on
or off
* identify Output controlled by Input on PLC ladder diagram
* ensure that Output LED is cycling on/off with Input
* check that Output voltage is correct and cycling on/off with Input
* locate Output device and ensure that voltage is reaching device and cycling with Input
* ensure that Output device is working correctly (solenoid coil, relay coil, contactor coil, etc.)
* an Input or Output module can be defective in one area or circuit and work correctly in all other
circuits
* if each field circuit is not fuse protected, the modular internal circuit becomes a fuse and can be
destroyed by a field short circuit or any other over-current condition
* check modular circuit; if bad, module must be replaced after correcting field fault
* shut down PLC prior to changing any module -main power and 24V power
* locate fault in field circuit by disconnecting wires at module and field device, check between wires for
short circuit and to ground for short circuit; replace wire is short circuit found
* check device for ground, short circuit, mechanical and electrical operation, even when problem found
in wires, always also check device for another fault, problem in wires can cause problem in device or
vice versa; if device defective, replace device and then check total circuit before placing in operation
and after restoring circuit, check again to ensure circuit and module are operating correctly
* check power supply module; if no output, shut down power and replace supply module
* back plane can go bad, some of the modules with power and others with no power, replace backplane

* sometimes, the PLC can be reset using the Reset key switch; ensure that turning the PLC off won't
interrupt other running sub-set programs, turn keys witch to far right, after 15 seconds, turn to far left
wait, then return to middle position; this operation should reset program and enable a restart
* the PLC program can have a latch relay with no reset under certain conditions, the key switch reset
may have no affect on the latch, try turning the power to the PLC off and back on, this operation may
reset the latch and allow the program to be restarted
* the PLC is usually part of a control circuit supplied with 120VAC through a 460V/120V transformer
as part of a system with motors, controllers, safety circuits, and other controls; occasionally, cycling the
main 480V power off/on will be necessary to try to reset all the safety and control circuits
* possession and use of an up-to-date ladder diagram, elementary wiring diagram, manufacturer's
manuals & diagrams, troubleshooting skills, operator's knowledge, and time are all required to solve
issues involved in maintaining a modern manufacturing production line.