Specialist Compliance Tester Improves Productivity at Hadar Lighting

Investment in new test technology has enabled a leading manufacturer of industrial and commercial lighting products to significantly reduce production line test times, increasing productivity and manufacturing efficiencies.

Hadar Lighting designs and manufactures a wide range of lighting fixtures, including systems for hazardous areas in industrial and commercial environments.

As well as traditional lighting products, the company is increasingly providing high performance LED luminaires and has recently upgraded its production line test technology with the purchase of specialist Clare HAL LED testers from Seaward.

The HAL LED incorporates a range of flexible electrical test capabilities to meet the demands of different production line testing needs. At Hadar the new advanced test stations perform earth bond testing alongside an AC/DC flash test, insulation test and function test to ensure that all products meet the test specification needs of all relevant luminaire product standards.

For lighting systems used in hazardous area installations, this requires product compliance with EN60079-14 and here, in relation to flash testing, the high resolution 10V incremental voltage range provided by the HAL LED is particularly relevant, enabling the Hadar production engineering team to more accurately meet the specific test parameters included in the standard.

Push button activation enables pre-determined tests entered in the HAL LED to be carried out automatically on each lighting fixture. Importantly, the automatic test sequencing feature has enabled previous test times to be reduced by almost 20 seconds on each individual fixture, giving overall throughput savings of up to one hour on typical product runs of 200 lighting units.

In addition, networking of the new HAL LED test stations with the Safety e-Base Pro software program enables all test results to be automatically recorded against product serial numbers, improving product certification and providing a fully traceable pass/fail record keeping system.

Steve Baron, Production Engineer at Hadar, said: “The multi-function and flexible test platform provided by the HAL LED has already contributed to considerable improvements in our production line throughputs by significantly reducing test times.

“The integrated system not only means that results are recorded automatically as tests are undertaken, but reduces the reliance on operator control and intervention.

“This ensures full compliance with test standards, reduces the risk of human error and also means that while testing is underway, operators can work on other production line tasks as part of a much more efficient and streamlined process.”

In line with Hadar’s ability to meet growing demand for more energy efficient LED lighting systems, the HAL LED has also been specially designed with a reduced power measurement range and high resolution test thresholds, making it ideal for the testing of low power electronics incorporated in LED lighting products.

Hadar Lighting is the lighting division of A-Belco Hazardous Area, an independent specialist UK manufacturer of explosion proof, flame proof and intrinsically safe electrical installation products for potentially explosive atmospheres within the oil and gas, petro-chemical, pharmaceutical and marine industries worldwide.