Are Those Panels Live
Thermography works by identifying thermal anomalies, and to enable this any electrical or mechanical equipment being surveyed should be operating.
Therefore ALL COMPONENTS ARE TREATED AS IF THEY ARE LIVE. It would be most unlikely that meaningful Thermography could be obtained on a non energised board, unless it had been immediately shut down (and often this is not possible). Similarly mechanical equipment in an operational state may start moving, rotating or perform some other action without warning. So non-electrical sources of energy (e.g. counterweights or stored hydraulic and pneumatic energy devices) are included in our risk assessments where such machines are surveyed.
With client approval we apply our electrical live working procedure for Thermography. This follows the Australian Standard AS/NZS 4836:2001 “Safe Working on Low Voltage Installations” - in particular section 3.2.5. "Work on or near exposed energized conductors". There is no disconnection, routing of conductors or operation of any equipment, as this is not part of the thermographic procedure. The “work” we perform consists solely of applying hand operated insulated Screw Drivers (AS/NZS 3527.2 compliant) to:
Identify hot spots or wires within groups by pointing to them, and
Check torque on easily reached terminals if anomalies are detected.
The first of these procedures allows an insulated screwdriver to appear as a pointer on the Thermal Camera screen. The second allows minor problems to be clarified or resolved, preventing hundreds of terminations either missing attention or requiring reporting and later follow up visits.