Seaward Tester Tastes Success At UK Coffee Machine Producer

The UK’s only manufacturer of cappuccino and espresso coffee machines is using the advanced multi-function ClareHAL 104 from Seaward to improve product testing at its West Midlands engineering and manufacturing site.

Fracino is a brand leading manufacturer of stylish and innovative commercial coffee machines for coffee shops, boutique hotels, gastro bars and restaurants. It supplies products to markets around the world and was the first company of its type to achieve the ISO 9001 quality standard.

At its Birmingham facility, newly produced coffee machines are designed and tested for reliability to ensure they operate correctly and to the highest standards of performance and safety.

All products have to be electrically safety tested to ensure they are safe for use by customers once they leave the factory gate. This involves the accurate recording of test results and storing them for quality control and traceability purposes.

So, in a move to improve this process and provide greater flexibility Fracino is now using a ClareHAL 104 on one of its two main production lines.

This forms an integral part of the quality control processes at the factory, which produces over 3000 machines a year, and enables the company to undertake fast and accurate electrical safety and run testing without damaging product.

The ClareHAL 104 is a fast and efficient automatic manufacturing solution, which records test results and enables accurate testing to be carried out in line with relevant product standards at all times.

Fracino’s managing director Adrian Maxwell said the ClareHAL 104 is an excellent tester which works well in the company’s precision engineering environment.

He added: “The ClareHAL 104 is an important part of our safety testing processes. It is quick and very easy-to-use, enabling production line staff to complete all the required electrical safety tests and record the results at once, at the press of a button.”

The ClareHAL 104 combines the performance of a multi-function production line safety tester with load and power factor measurement for product energy consumption and ratings assessments.

The instrument meets the end of line electrical safety compliance tests required by the majority of national and international product safety standards.

As well as load and power functional tests, the new tester incorporates AC/DC Hipot (flash/dielectric strength), Insulation, Ground/Earth bond testing to 40A, Load Switching to 16A with measurement to 20 milliamps and leakage to 100 microAmps.

The new tester has widespread applications in production situations where high resolution performance measurements are important and can be used as a manual stand alone tester with simple push button test activation.

Alternatively, it can be fully integrated into automated manufacturing systems with selectable sensors and enclosure interlocks, or by ultimate control using remote PCs and PLCs.

A large, clear full graphic display presents information either in a numerical or analogue format and a powerful internal memory allows the storage of up to 6,000 test results and up to 50 configurable test routines (expanded furthermore with Safety–eBase Pro). The instrument can also be interfaced with a variety of accessories ranging from bar code scanners to pass/fail label printers.

Find out more about the ClareHAL 104 Multi-function Safety Tester.