The Sensor Companion™ is a small, lightweight, smart, universal instrument controller that includes a data logger, visual data display, and alarm relays, that you can easily interface to your new instrument over its 4 to 20 mA current loop or 0 to 5 volt output, almost as soon as you open up your new instrument’s box. It is a battery operated device that can stay with your new instrument through acceptance testing, burn-in,field installation and start-up.
No one wants to cause costly interruptions to production or cause a safety problem. Proper procedure dictates that your new device, using either a 4 to 20 mA current loop signal output or a 0 to 5 volt signal output, needs to be:
As part of your acceptance procedure, it’s a good idea to allow your new instrument to operate for a burn-in period to ensure that it doesn’t drift or demonstrate electrical glitches. Sensor Companion™ can help you track your device’s performance and ensure reliable operation through the most extensive burn-in period. Sensor Companion™ can monitor your new instrument’s output from the time your instrument leaves its box through final project acceptance. Sensor Companion™ can even operate in series with your process control computer to ensure that your instrumentation technician is seeing the same readings at the instrument’s remote site as the operator in the control room. So, to summarize, Sensor Companion™ can help you all along the way in meeting your goal of a successful instrumentation project.
Sensor Companion™ comes with an additional Support Software package that allows you to upload instrument data, simulate alarms, and measure drift and other important instrument performance parameters. The Sensor Companion™ Support Software package allows you to set the sampling rate and other operating parameters of the Sensor Companion™ field unit. Software ports are built into the Sensor Companion™ Support Software package to allow you to simulate some of the basic logic you might use in your Process Control Algorithm. Using this feature, you can see your new instrument as your Process Control Computer will see it. The Sensor Companion™ Support Software package allows you to build Excel™ spreadsheets from your raw or processed instrument data.
Smile you’re in the picture! Finally here’s a feature, unique to the Sensor Companion™, that will make your life easier: during either testing or field operation if an instrument malfunctions, for example a chemical detector false alarms over an initial start-up period, Sensor Companion™ can be programmed to take pictures of what’s going on using it’s integral camera. Random events such as someone turning on the lights or a large electrical motor starting up, can frequently cause a glitch due to grounding or other problems. You never would have guessed it! A picture is worth 1000 words.
Many process instrument manufacturers, including gas detector manufacturers; adhere to standards for industrial facilities using long cable runs in a fixed installation. They use a 4 to 20 mA signal communications link which is highly advantageous in industrial settings but not necessary in a small laboratory, and they would like to supply you with a gas detector controller in an explosion proof box. This may not always be convenient, or affordable, in a laboratory environment. Sensor Companion™ provides you with either a 4 to 20 mA input or a 0 to 5 V input, user set alarm thresholds with alarm relay closures, and a converter that converts 4 to 20 mA input to a 0 to 5 V output if desired, for example, for a chart recorder. Contrast Sensor Companion™ with process instrument manufacturer’s elaborate instrument controllers and alarm systems designed for an industrial environment. Gas sensor manufacturer’s systems are quite expensive, are not flexible or versatile, and are an unnecessary overkill for a small gas detector or other instrument user.
RMC has developed Sensor Companion™ with the small system user in mind. We anticipate that Sensor Companion™ will find broad applications in university laboratories that must adhere to university health and safety procedures. Toxic gases, or processes and materials that can give off toxic vapors, are common in university settings and users do not want to deal with gas detector systems designed for large industrial facilities. For example, after an inventory of hydrogen fluoride on campus, one university safety organization found that hydrogen fluoride was used in nine departments ranging from archeology to plant science. All of these departments could benefit from a gas detector next to their fume hood and a Sensor Companion™ in order to meet requirements specified in university health and safety procedures. Sensor Companion™ won’t eliminate an inconvenient gas detector in these small laboratory settings but it can eliminate the need for a very expensive and often very dumb controller.
Another broad application for Sensor Companion™ is in supporting small businesses that only require several tanks of gas for a prototyping, molding, or other industrial process but, like the university user, do not have long cable runs or a need for large numbers of detectors. Sensor Companion™ can accept chemical gas detector input and actuate alarm contacts for an annunciator or other alarm system. In addition it will store gas detector signal output values so an alarm, including a false alarm, can be diagnosed.
Another important and very useful feature of Sensor Companion™ is that it can implement signal processing algorithms to reduce false alarms such as time weighted averaging or even sophisticated digital filters. Sensor Companion™ can continuously record data as it scans for alarms so you always have a record of what caused an alarm. In addition the Sensor Companion™ can be used when calibrating your instrument to set zero and span.
Unlike industrial alarm controllers, Sensor Companion™ comes with Support Software that can be used to program the portable Sensor Companion™ hardware device, upload data for record keeping and convert uploaded sensor data to Excel™ Spreadsheets. The Sensor Companion™ has an integral digital camera that can be programmed to photograph events based on the 4 to 20 mA input so important events either in a controlled experiment or in the room can be photographed for documentation or further analysis.
To summarize, up until now, users such as university laboratories or prototyping facilities with one tank of gas outside a fume hood may have little recourse to expensive controllers that implement a 4 to 20 mA link and relatively simple logic packaged into a very expensive black box. Sensor Companion™ can offer an inexpensive alternative. Sensor Companion™ accepts 4 to 20 mA input and can be programmed to alarm at user defined levels.
Toxic gas detectors, installed in the field, are frequently expensive to remove from an installation, decontaminate, and bring back to the instrument workshop. Toxic gas detectors are embedded in a plant somewhere in a maze of pipes, pumps, and other process equipment. It may be hard to understand why a false alarm is occurring or even if it is a false alarm. Bringing your detector back to the instrument workshop where you can set it up and work on it may seem like the logical next step but Sensor Companion™ offers you a better alternative. You can automatically photograph events in situ in order to determine if there are related events happening at the site. This feature may allow you to determine if the event may involve an actual chemical release or if it is an electrical noise problem correlated with a motor starting up or other event. Using this Sensor Companion™ feature you can reduce the risk of disrupting production and increasing plant safety through rapid and accurate diagnosis. Sensor Companion™ can be preprogrammed using your Sensor Companion™ Support Software and placed in series in the 4 to 20 mA line to the process control computer. The Sensor Companion™ can be programmed to collect data and actuate the camera when an alarm threshold is exceeded. Pictures can be periodically uploaded to you camera and examined.
Frequently when installing or troubleshooting a chemical detector or other field equipment an instrument technician goes out to the site and communicates with the control room by radio as he/she examines and troubleshoots the unit. She/He always has to check back with the control room to find out what the readings from the equipment are doing. Sensor Companion™ offers an alternative. You can place the Sensor Companion™ hardware unit in series with the process control computer and observe the detector output just as the process control computer sees it. This feature greatly reduces the workload in the control room and allows the instrument technician to work more efficiently.
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