Pre-calibration creates a lot of questions for researchers or engineers using the Smart Boxes for scientific applications. This is not a problem, it is more a confidence and certification issue, it is vital that for scientific application you make sure the product is suitable for your applications. We have two certification options for the Smart Boxes. The Smart Box Sensor comes as Standard non-certified, ideal for general use monitoring (Indicative Monitoring) and certified Smart Box Sensor for Scientific application.
Monitoring Standards & Measurement of Uncertainly
Certification means they have been calibrated and tested against a standard. This Standard is used as a reference, also called a reference standard. This provides traceability and confidence in the data collected.
Why is calibration important?
Most loggers in use today require you to buy cables and sensors separately, they’re very customisable allowing you to get your job done, but requires a lot of time to setup, calibrate sensors and has lots of cables. Cable length is important as it affects sensor accuracy. Lots of sensors and lots of cables means lots of calibration, calibrating loggers takes time, as you first need to read the manual and learn how to calibrate and you may have a number of different loggers for different applications adding to your work load. The principles of calibration stay the same, but the software and process will vary between loggers and can become tedious. The Smart Box removes the tedium of calibration as it comes pre-calibrated; you just have to choose the right Smart Box. Do you really want to spend ours calibrating?
Calibration of Basic Principles
Calibration is a comparison between measurements, one of known magnitude/correctness made with one device (The Standard) and another measurement made as similar as possible with a second device (Unit under test). The device with the magnitude/correctness is called the standard. The second device is the Unit Under Test and is the device being calibrated. The Standard is more accurate than the Unit Under Test.
Below is a basic example.
We use a 0.01 Three phase Energy Standard worth £35,000 for calibration of Energy. We have more than one standard, we use the 0.01 to calibrate our 0.05 Reference Standard and then use that to calibrate other standards ranging from 0.1, 0.2, 0.5 and then energy meters of 1% and 2% or Class 1.0 and Class 2.0 All our energy standards are traceable back to the 0.01 Energy Standard. The 0.01 is externally calibrated using a better standard. Last time we requested the National Physical Laboratory of London to calibrate our 0.01 Three Phase Energy standard, we were told they did not have a better standard, so we had to use another external approved body for calibration. This does not mean we have a better standard, it could be we have equal or simply a more accurate standard is not available at the time.
In a nut shell all our measuring equipment has an unbroken chain of traceability back to national standards. If we cannot provide certifications our selves we will use an external approved laboratory.
Remember certification increases the cost, only get it certified if it is required.