Video: RAPIDOX SF6 6100
RAPIDOX SF6 6100: a zero-emission SF6 gas analyser that returns the sample to the equipment. What it measures, how to connect it, how to run an analysis and how the gas is recovered.
AI-generated video. The information must be validated by an Amperis engineer.
See the product page: Rapidox 6100 Pump Back: SF6 analyser
Video transcript
What the analyser does, why it does not lose a gram of gas doing it, and how to run a test from start to finish. SF6 insulates switchgear, but only while it stays pure. Arcing breaks it down, moisture creeps in, and the by-products are corrosive and toxic. The gas has to be checked, and the check itself must not release any of it. That is the whole idea of this instrument. It draws a small sample from the equipment, analyses it,
dries it, and then pumps it back at up to 10 bar. Nothing is vented, and nothing foreign gets in. And it does not only measure purity. Up to 8 gases can be analysed at the same time, including the decomposition products that tell you the switchgear has been working hard. In the field it is deliberately simple. Connect, follow the wizard on the touchscreen, and wait a few minutes. The pre-programmed IEC and CIGRE configurations mean you are not inventing the test.
The result does not stay in the instrument. It prints on the spot, in the language you work in, and a year of testing fits in the internal memory. Two details make it a field instrument rather than a laboratory one. It carries 3 separate calibrations for cold, warm and hot climates, and its sensors can be replaced on site, pre-calibrated, without sending it back. And a handful of functions that exist because someone had to stand next to the instrument for too long.
Three gas ports, and knowing which is which is most of the job. A is the inlet, and every sample goes in there. B is the high pressure outlet, for above 10 bar. C is the low pressure outlet, used in continuous mode and for calibration. Inside, the sample follows a fixed path. It enters through the inlet, the system pulls a vacuum so no air travels with it, the sensor bank reads every gas at once, the moisture trap takes the water out, and the compressor holds the gas until it can be pushed back.
Before going out, two things. Charge it, and let it warm up. The instrument is usable in 3 to 4 minutes, but full accuracy takes about 15. The hose connection is the one manual operation that people get wrong. Pull the knurled collar down first, line the fitting up, push it home, and only then release the collar. Then choose the mode, because the mode decides where the gas comes back out. Below 10 bar, above 10 bar, or straight from a gas cylinder. And connect accordingly.
Below 10 bar, the hose goes from the inlet to the equipment and that is all. Above 10 bar, or when purging the line, fit a recovery bag on outlet B so that whatever is expelled is not lost. The test itself is 5 presses and a wait. And while it counts down you can watch the readings live, or the graph, instead of staring at a number that has not settled yet. And one rule worth writing on the case: Eight minutes is the test that gives you everything.
Two minutes measures SF6 only, and moisture is not measured at all unless the test lasts at least 6. After a bad sample, clean it. If the analyser has seen toxic gases or a very wet sample, the nitrogen clean cycle purges the whole instrument until the toxic readings fall back to zero. The moisture trap has its own cycle. When the desiccant is saturated, a vacuum is held on it for several minutes to draw the water back out, and it is ready again.
Everything else lives in the menu, and the parts that can spoil a measurement are behind a password. SF6 gas analysis, from Amperis.