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Electric Exports

Christchurch company Commtest Instruments has made good use of a research and development grant from the Technology for Business Growth (TBG) programme. Commtest is looking at a million dollars worth of orders for the MMS 1000 in its first six months, much of this from overseas.

"The TBG scheme is ideally suited to a company such as ours, with limited resources but a pressing need for ongoing product research and development," says Commtest's Dallas Wakelin.

"New Zealand has the talent to come up with world class technology but very often the people with the know-how lack the financial means to put theory into practice."

The MMS 1000 is a high precision hand-held electronic data logger which has been developed to measure and record the surface condition of commutators and slip rings in rotating electric machines. It is vital that such parts be perfectly round and smooth, and the instrument can resolve measurements to a precision of just one micron within a few minutes, diagnosing faults before they cause serious damage.