Setra Blog


August 02, 2017

Are Hospital Pharmacies Moving Toward Clean Room Standards?

The regulation language in U.S. Pharmacopeia Standard 797 (USP 797) has long been the guiding principle for cleanliness in hospital pharmacies that treat cancer patients with compounding sterile preparations (CSPs). For airflow in these special rooms, USP 797 outlines how spaces are to be pressurized, and what are permissible parts per million (PPM) particle counts.

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June 22, 2017

How to Select a Power Meter

What Are You Monitoring?

One critical consideration when searching for a proper power meter is to determine what you're measuring. Is the monitored load signal-phase, split-phase or three-phase? What voltage/current ranges are going to be monitored? 

If you're interested in a power meter for residential or light commercial applications, then typically a single or split-phase meter would be the best cho

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June 12, 2017

What is a Vivarium?

To most people, the term “vivarium” conjures up the image of a small fish tank-like glass box where a pet rat or gecko lives. While this is not incorrect, vivariums in biomedical research facilities are a bit more robust than what you might see in a high school science lab.

Vivarium Defined

Vivariums are enclosed areas designed to provide a stable environment for animals and plants for observation or scientific research. Often, vivariums contain a portion of an ecosystem for a particular species with controlled environmental conditions on a smaller scale. A vivarium you would find in an academic research setting contains multiple racks of various sizes depending on the species it contains.

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March 23, 2017

What is peak demand?

Looking at your electric bill can be a daunting task. There are many factors that can affect your bill’s total — factors that are only amplified in large commercial and industrial sites.

One such consideration is peak demand. Peak demand is the largest instance of power usage in a given time frame, typically a rolling fifteen minute window. Measured in kilowatts (kW), peak demand is different than consumption. Total consumption  is measured in kilowatt hours (kWh) over a given period of time (e.g. monthly, quarterly, etc.). 

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March 16, 2017

What is power factor?

The power flowing through an alternating current (AC) load isn’t always pulling its full weight. Every AC circuit has some degree of non-working power as part of its total power reading and this can affect the amount of power a system is truly drawing.

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March 09, 2017

How can Employees Contaminate a Clean Environment?

It is commonly known that gowning procedures and air flow requirements are essential to maintaining a sterile clean room environment. Workers and operators don’t realize how crucial employee training is and the enormous impact employees have with the sanitation of the cleanroom. Unfortunately, humans are considered to be the biggest threat to the cleanroom and the largest source for contaminants, accounting for 75% to 80% of particles and microbes generated in a room. Understanding how personnel create particles and microbes or bring in contaminants, can help structure proper employee training, greatly bringing down the risk for clean environment contamination.

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February 13, 2017

Why Choose Rogowski Coils?

Many electricians and contractors are moving towards using Rogowski Coils because of the time saved during installation and the reduced shipping costs for high amperage requirements. Because of the size, weight and flexibility of a Rogowski Coil, installers can save significant time and labor because of the ease of surrounding conductors of all sizes. However, what most people don’t realize is that Rogowski Coils have many technical advantages over standard split-core or “donut” CT’s which can help improve monitoring energy in different applications.

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February 09, 2017

The AHR 2017 Experience

Thank you to all who visited us at Booth C1452 in the Building Automation and Controls section of the AHR Expo this year in Las Vegas, Nevada! We enjoyed seeing both new and familar faces! The world's largest HVACR event was anything but boring and we think the 60,000 attendees would have to agree.

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January 16, 2017

How to use a single Power Supply to power pressure transducers

When installing a pressure transducer system, selecting a power supply may not be one of the first things that comes to your mind. Since a single power supply can be used to power multiple pressure transducers, many regard it as a non-vital task. Nonetheless, it is essential to have the proper configurations between the power source and devices in order for all components to communicate properly and to avoid receiving inaccurate data. Here are some of the best practices we found for using a single power supply to power multiple devices.

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January 09, 2017

How To Measure Velocity And Flow

In HVAC/R applications it is helpful to understand the methods used to determine air velocity. Air velocity (distance traveled per unit of time) is most often expressed in feet per minute (FPM).  Multiplying air velocity by the area of a duct allows you to determine the air volume flowing past a point in the duct per unit of time. Volume flow is generally measured in cubic feet per minute (CFM).

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