I am currently sitting at my desk at work, and reviewing some of the not so critical Y2K issues that we may face.

One instrument that we use regularly, is a PDA-IV tester (for Partial Discharge Analysis) and is supplied by IRIS Power Engineering in Canada. When we tested it we find that the base PC and operating systems were not Y2K compliant, and we requested information from IRIS. In front of me right now is a letter from the manufacturer stating that they find it interesting that only two customers have noticed a problem with the instrument, and both are from New Zealand.

This instrument is used widely right throughout the world, so how come no north american users have bothered to test it?

Malcolm

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999

Answers

Malcolm,

What would be the impact of this device's failure in the "real world" come 1/1/00 & beyond?

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999

Drew,

There would be no real impact. The instrument is used to determine the condition of Stator windings, and to give some early warning of impending failure.

An example is that the results from our last set of tests with it show that one of our generators is in a poor condition, and could fail sometime in the near future. There is no suprise in this result as the generator in question is already 43 years old, and is the next one due for major work anyway.

Malcolm

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999

Nevertheless, the manufacturer says that only 2 inquiries have been received so far, both from NZ. Why is that? Since this is not in the mission critical area, perhaps no attention is being paid to it? Of course, when they need to use this "tool" next year it won't function. Sounds just like those EDGs that are giving the companies fits and creating an *embarrassing* problem for them. Neglect, over time, eventually catches up with you.

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999

Malcolm, I am puzzled, too. While I know, from their own statements, that American utilities prioritized their Y2K work and have concentrated on readying those items in the Mission-Critical and/or Important categories, it was also my assumption (from various utility filings)that status-request letters had been sent to all the equipment vendors for any items which had been inventoried and assessed as having a potential problem. It would seem logical to me that letters would have gone out after the assessment phase, regardless of the priority for fixing any equipment. That way you would at least have more information on whether an item needed fixing/replacing or if an upgrade was available, even if it was not in a priority being addressed at the moment. Your information leaves me with the implication that my assumptions were incorrect about the sending of vendor compliance form letters.

Of course, I do not have access to any American utilities' inventory, so I can't know about the specific use of this product in the U.S. It would seem likely, though, that at the very least Canadian utilities would be dealing with the company you mentioned. I do know that there are a few utilities which have stated they are now working on lesser priority items.

Are there different ages and models of this item? Is it possible that inquiries were made about other models of the PDA-IV testor(if they exist) and IRIS was speaking only of the specific model you asked about? That's the only other possibility I can think of at the moment which might explain this disparity - other than North American utilities are not yet addressing lower priority items, even with after-assessment letters. Hopefully, someone in the industry here or in Canada can provide you with more information and answer your question.

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999

Malcom, Please provide additional information concerning the nature of the non-y2k compliance. I am not familiar with this particular model, but I am familiar with similar PC based devices. In my experience, non-compliant hardware/software rarely causes the device to malfunction other than to display/print incorrect dates. What is the situation with this device?

Regard,

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999

Factfinder,

As far as I'm aware the only problem with it will be that it will display the wrong date each time it is powered up. The date can be set manually and it will work fine.... untill the next time it is turned on.

I'll check with our performance engineer on monday, but I don't think there are any other issues with it.

Malcolm

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999

Malcom, Looking into this further, it only took me a couple of minutes to find the vendors y2k information for this product, the link is at: http://www.irispower.com/y2k.htm

"The information for the partial dischare intrument PDA and TGA lines , software version 4.3A/B, provides the following information: Already compliant in Iris software. The computer card used in these instruments will not properly roll over to the year 2000 but will revert to 1980. Before running a test in the new millennium, the computer date must be manually set to the appropriate date."

If this is indeed applicable to the device you have, no fix for it is listed on the website, only the workaround given above. As with almost all other devices I have seen y2k problems with, the only problem listed is a date problem, and the device should function regardless (but with the wrong date unless reset manually as stated above).

I am not sure why the vendor hasn't had additional contacts from the industry, but not sure how many of these devices are out there either. One reason that they may not have had many contacts is that the vendor provides y2k information and fixes on it's website, as many of the vendors do. For the projects I have been involved in however, we preferred a signed letter from the vendor, so we would have contacted them if we had any of their devices (we did not). Another reason may be that the utilities have also tested this devices themselves (I would have).

Regards,

-- Anonymous, July 30, 1999