The Versatility of Portable Phase Converters for Mobile Workshops
What is required in the industry today is mobility. Military field troops (and emergency response teams), oil and gas drillers (and road construction crews), all railroad maintenance crews, all work more and more where the grid is not extended, or where the grid is single-phase only. Mobile workshops fitted with welding machines, compressors, lathes and diagnostic equipment will not run on three phase power. The introduction of the recent technology in transformers has resulted in a portable phase converter; the answer to the issues presented between the existing single-phase source and the three phase requirement of the new mobile industry. Jiangsu Ryan Electric and decades of experience with transformers are dedicated to this most demanding application with rugged and reliable solutions wherever the work takes them.
The natural disadvantage of mobile workshops is that the machinery to carry out more complicated jobs, such as industrial welders, plasma cutters, large compressors and machine tools, is virtually unanimously powered by three phases. Three phase motors provide greater starting torque, operation, and efficiency compared to single phase and therefore must be able to perform at the level required of a professional.
But the supply at remote works is usually single-phase on a temporary utility pole, a portable generator or a connection to a campsite. This creates lack of power balance, which deprives mobile workshops of its full equipment potential. Ryan Electric is coming back with the introduction of portable phase converters which transforms 240 V or 480 V single phase hardwiring to three phase. We are combining our knowledge of both VPI transformer and portable ruggedized enclosures to allow mobile workshops to be moved anywhere, to a remote mining camp in Australia or a disaster recovery location in the Americas, with the same three-phase capacity as its more permanent equivalents.
Size is the biggest problem with portable phase conversion engineering. Transformers of three phases which can accept the starting impulse of a motor driven machine are enormous and bulky and there is a limit with reference to its portability. Ryan electric has been able to address this shortcoming by offering superior design solutions and material.
Our high grade grain oriented silicon steel is the core and the windings are fastened around tightly wound copper windings to produce our high power density in our portable phase converters. This gives us the necessary kVA capacity on an incredibly small footprint compared to our conventional designs. We also provide configurations at 10MVA and below, that can either be mounted on trailers themselves, in service trucks or as independent units that can be transported with the forklift or crane. Vacuum pressure impregnation (VPI) technology, makes sure that our windings does not shake on the way- a very important fact when handling portable equipment that has to be able to endure the percussion of rough roads, several turns and turns plus some inner destruction and loss of connection.
The problems of a transformer at the mobile shop are never experienced in a fixed unit: the vibration is constant, the temperature is either very high or very low, dust is everywhere, there is water and, in some cases, rough treatment is mandatory. Standard industrial transformers are not built to withstand these sorts of conditions and will not last long when they are subjected to the stress of being used on the move.
Ryan Electric hand-held phase converters are designed to be installed in a mobile setting. Our enclosures are durable with IP54 or greater ingress protection, and our enclosures are hermetically sealed against the dust of a construction site and the wetness of the tropical operation. The internal parts are sturdy braced and potted where the need be to withstand the vibrations and shock motions when transporting around. When we need to work in harsh environment, either in the icy railroad tracks of the high mountains or the sweltering oil wells of the desert, we carry insulation systems and materials with complete full-temperature rating. All units leave our two test laboratories highly tested and can therefore work anywhere the next job might be.
The variety of applications can be best exemplified by the variety of portable phase converters. They are also used in the construction sector to allow temporary workstations to be set up at bridge sites, and also to allow tunnel projects to conduct on site fabrication to save on transport costs and time lost in projects. They are filling the maintenance plants servicing drilling machines in isolated areas, with oil and gas explorers.
Military and defense services involve the use of portable phase converters to install forward operating bases in full maintenance mode, either on a locally available single-phase station power source or a mobile generator. They are also used in farming as an alternative to drive irrigation pumps and other processing machines in areas where it is supplied on a single-phase. They are used by railway maintenance crews on remote tracks energizing the welding and track-laying machines. They are additionally used by film and event production companies to drive up studio quality lighting and effects with a standard campsite power. Portfolio Portable phase converters manufactured by Ryan Electric have been certified to IEEE, UL and CE and other international standards have been exported to more than 80 countries and have been proven to be versatile and dependable in all sectors of the mobile industries with clients in the military force and in major construction contractors around the world all giving a thumbs up to their use.
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