Equipment Damage

We have been called upon by manufacturers, electric utilities, and end users for the purpose of determining the cause of failures in their electrical equipment and products.  This equipment has ranged in size from miniature electronic equipment and residential electrical distribution equipment  - all the way up to utility electrical substations and industrial electrical distribution equipment that fill large buildings.  The losses we have been involved in have ranged in size from tens of dollars and a few square feet, up to hundreds of millions of dollars and in excess of a million square feet of property damage. 

As working electricians and electrical engineers with deep on the job and forensic experience, we are uniquely qualified to interface with electrical workers, maintenance personnel, and others who may be involved in an equipment incident.  We can readily establish a discourse with management, the engineer, the electrician, and the worker in the trenches, in order to find out what really happened before, during and after an incident.

Our facilities are equipped with electrical, welding, machine and woodworking shops, along with the proficiency in using them.  We derived from backgrounds and families of workers with experience in building construction, maintenance, electrical work, mining, and auto/truck repair.  Our electrical shop can generate test fault currents up to 1000 Amperes and voltages to 15,000 Volts.  Our Welding shop is equipped with MIG, TIG, Gas and Stick welding machines, along with Plasma cutting capabilities.  Our machine and metal working shop is equipped with a lathe, Bridgeport Mill, bandsaw and metalworking machine.  Our woodworking shop has the normal power and hand tools.   With these shops we are able to safely disassemble, analyze, repair and produce equipment necessary for our mission.  We are also able to make courtroom displays and teaching tools.

Our electronics, photographic and tear-down laboratories have a useful mix of modern Fluke test equipment, along with tried and true standards, and in-house produced specialty equipment.  We can devise and construct equipment to be used in our investigations.  We are also knowledgeable in electronic and electrical equipment with experience in metrology, and calibrations.

The Twin Cities area also provides us with commercial laboratories where we can utilize their specialty equipment such as, the industrial X-Ray and the Scanning Electron Microscope with electron dispersion analysis.