As our industry has transitioned from the retail consumer electronics trade to the more sophisticated, professionally installed home automation and smart home systems based on IP networks with sophisticated and sensitive control systems, the game has changed. Sensitive equipment like the electronics being installed today can be susceptible to power supply quality issues. This can lead to system performance problems, equipment failures, reduced system lifespans, unhappy clients, and profit-robbing additional truck rolls to try to solve often vexing, intermittent conditions.
Now integrators can offer an affordable and effective solution called Wavecrest that prevents these problems from occurring in the first place.
Learn all about Wavecrest…
For more than three decades, New Jersey-based Mechanical Ingenuity Corporation (MIC) has developed innovative solutions, largely for industrial and commercial applications. It became a significant supplier of heavy-duty gear such as low-pressure chiller controls, pump controls, industrial door operators, and commercial retrofit LED lighting system design and installation. They have partnered with major U.S. companies like Carrier, Trane, Johnson Controls, IBM, DUPONT, Washington Dulles International Airport, Willis Tower, and more.
Flickering LED Lights, Unhappy Commercial Client
As part of its LED lighting business, the company began running into installation challenges. When switching a 100,000 sq. ft. medical facility from fluorescent to LED lighting, trigger events, such as elevator operation or HVAC startup, would cause the newly installed LED lighting system to flicker. Perhaps some of you have had this experience as well.
This did not make the customer happy, especially when you consider that they did not have any such problem with their old fluorescent lighting. So MIC engineers got to work and discovered the culprit causing the lighting to misbehave. That culprit was partly a result of dirty power. And also, “It was voltage sag on the building’s electrical feed,” Andrew Manning, Head of Business Development for MIC told me.
A Bootstrapped On-Site Solution…The Beginning of Wavecrest
It was a problem they would run into regularly. So, with necessity being the mother of invention, MIC engineers on the spot created a bootstrapped solution that they would install on every lighting circuit throughout the building to condition the power. It worked. That bootstrapped solution would go on to become the new Wavecrest Power Quality Protection device.
Wavecrest is an electrician-installed power quality protection device that is cleverly engineered to protect any circuit from common power quality issues in the supplied power. Specifically, it protects against the following key power quality issues…
Key Power Quality Problems
- EMI / RFI Noise
- Surge
- Transients
- Overvoltage
- Undervoltage
- Harmonics
- Electrical Overstress (EOS)
Wavecrest says it’s the best option to protect any circuit or device sensitive to power quality issues, for example:
- LED Lights
- Heat Pump Controls
- Hot Water Circulators
- Screen Displays
- Logic Controllers
Surge Protection, One Small Part of the Problem
Many integrators I’ve spoken with have told me they regularly include SPD or surge protection devices to protect their installations. However, most of these devices are a one-trick pony and do not provide protection for a wide range of other power quality issues, some even more likely to occur than a power surge. With Wavecrest, your installations are protected from a much wider range of issues to help ensure years of client satisfaction, no matter the state of the incoming power quality.
According to MIC, power quality events are one of the most significant and costly impacts on electrical systems and products. They point to studies that show poor power quality costs the U.S. economy up to $180 billion annually. They specifically point to studies from the Leonardo Power Quality Initiative and the Electric Power Research Institute.
Those losses result from equipment damage, downtime, warranty claims, callbacks, and more. Also consider other intangible losses such as damaged reputation, strained customer and supplier relationships, and lawsuits.
Wavecrest, Protecting Your Clients While Protecting Your Business
Wavecrest’s patent-pending design protects your clients’ systems from a wide range of common power quality issues. And they protect your business from unhappy clients, additional truck rolls, time spent troubleshooting PQ issues, and reduced profits.
What’s really amazing is that you get a tremendous amount of protection from a device that only costs $599 (retail). Each Wavecrest unit is a 30-amp unit with the proper voltage to match the circuit. The company offers 120V, 208V, 240V, 277V versions. Also available are 208V and 480Y tri-phase versions.
Effective, Affordable Scalability
What’s neat about the design is that it is fully scalable. Say you have a specific power quality problem that emerged in a recent installation. Perhaps flickering LED lighting. You can install one Wavecrest unit on that specific branch circuit and – voilá – problem solved.
Now let’s say a client has had a full professional chef’s kitchen installed in his home, with multiple items that require protection such as lighting, massive floor-standing Hobart mixers, heavy-duty Wolf and Sub Zero appliances, and the like. Simply have a Wavecrest device installed on each relevant branch circuit, and all is well.
An Example of What Wavecrest Does
Wavecrest’s patent-pending design ingeniously provides an instant on-demand solution for the most common variety of power quality issues. Let’s take, for example, the case of the MIC’s LED lighting installation in that 100,000 sq. ft. medical facility. As I mentioned above, when elevators activated or the air conditioning system kicked in, the LED lighting system would flicker.
The team determined the LED system failure was due to both dirty power and a transient sag in voltage – especially the voltage sag. As it sounds, transient voltage sag is a momentary drop in voltage – typically a matter of milliseconds. That drop in voltage was what caused the LED lights to instantly begin flickering.
The Sag Didn’t Hit the Load, the LED Lights Didn’t Flicker, and the Client Didn’t Get Mad
When a Wavecrest unit detects the transient sag, it addresses it by briefly continuing to deliver current to the load. It does this by drawing on its internal 4 ms of capacitance. The sag doesn’t hit the load, and the LED lights don’t flicker. And the client doesn’t get upset!
This is but one example of what Wavecrest handles. It has equally clever solutions to each of the seven main categories of power quality issues it solves. The key is that the detection, engagement, and solution are instantaneous and automatic. The client most likely doesn’t even know it’s happening.
Systems Keep Working, Clients Keep Smiling
Clients with Wavecrest installed just go on loving their smart home, as everything just keeps on working perfectly – no matter the quality of your power source.
I had a chance to speak with Matt Selecman of Electronic Marketing Associates, a sales rep firm that represents Wavecrest in the Midwest. Matt is himself a master electrician who worked with Lutron for many years. Matt said the minute he met the MIC folks and saw the Wavecrest unit, he immediately saw the need for a product like this in the custom integration channel.
‘It’s a No-Brainer…’
This [Wavecrest] is a no-brainer. Our industry needs this. You can see the commercial/industrial background of the company in the build quality of the product.
Matt Selecman, Electronic Marketing Associates
He told me that EMA is recommending that integrators include Wavecrest units “as part of your boilerplate spec.” The intelligence of the design, the robustness of the product build quality, and the scope of the power protection are not being equaled by any other competitor at this time…or anywhere near this price.
Put Wavecrest on the Front End Before Your Racks and Power Quality is Covered
To integrators, Matt says, “If you’re already putting together a power package in that rack – whatever that is – add to that a Wavecrest on the front end (branch circuit) and you’ve got primary, secondary, and tertiary means of surge protection and power quality conditioning pre-built into the system.”
I’d call that a win-win-win solution.
To learn more about Mechanical Ingenuity Corporation and Wavecrest, visit mechanicalingenuity.com.
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