Cameras, a useful tool
At our shop in
Baytown I find that our little digital camera is one of the most useful in our arsenal. I admit its not thought of as useful as our multimeters and o'scopes but it can save a lot of work and surely aids in communication.
While working on an old 650 Watt Sorensen power supply it became apparent that a small 4 winding toroid transformer had to be changed. I needed to rewind it with some fresh new magnetic wire. Now I could try to make notes on where each of the leads go and try to keep track of each of their windings and polarities. The simple thing to do of course is take a picture, print it out on the laser/ink jet jot a few notes and I have some pretty foolproof documentation. Using Photoshop or just about any other photo editing software one could put text tags mark up a photo that will be emailed or saved to disk. A picture can also simplify a written procedure by showing just what a specific setup is supposed to look like.
Often part numbers can be confusing a particular widget might have a zillion options and a dozen build options a picture just might be the way to communicate exactly what widget is under discussion.
Some companies have pretty tight security policies on cameras in the workplace. We as support people have to live within whatever guidelines that are given us. However in most cases justification can be made in the time and money that a camera can save in documentation and communications. I am seeing more shops and support people with cameras available when they need them.
Labels: Electronics, Industry, Troubleshooting
Paper May Soon Power The Machine That Replaced It
Ever notice that the only reason some of your electronics are as big as they are is because of their batteries? For instance how much smaller and lighter would your laptop be if it had a battery the size of a piece of paper in it? Well huge, clunky batteries may soon be a thing of the past thanks to some students Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Two groups of students were working on two different projects: working to dissolve paper to be cast for dialysis and making carbon nanotubes with polymers. The two RPI groups got together and figured out that they could combine the two projects. Instead of using the polymers for the nanotubes they could use the paper casting techniques. The device is an integrated device; it is not a combination of several pieces. The paper is in infused with an electrolyte and embedded with the carbon nanotubes. The tubes act as electrodes, the paper the separator, and the electrolytes are the medium in which current flows. Their ultimate goal is to develop a process that allows the batteries to be “printed” like newspapers. This idea is already in use with PCB design and board printing. The current prototype, “a thin sheet black on one side and white on the other”, is still far from being put into any consumer or commercial device, but the hope is there. In the past 18 months the students and researchers have developed the battery, a capacitor, and a new device that acts like both. So until this product hits the market, I guess we are stuck with keeping up with all those letters and numbers: AA, AAA, C, D, A23, AAAA, CR927….
Labels: Electronics, Industry
The Wait Is Over
Let’s say you just got to work and you are booting up your PC, this is where the waiting begins. You have to wait for your hard drive to turn on and get its head in the game. Oh and of course as you are waiting for your system to boot up your boss walks by and definitely notices you sitting there not doing anything. “But it’s not my fault I was waiting for the computer to…” Next thing you know you are putting all your stuff in an empty Hammermill paper box. Well this my friends may be a thing of the past. Japan and the Netherlands teamed up to reinvent the hard drive; a year after its 50th anniversary. The physicists reign from Rabboud University Nijmegen of the Netherlands and Nihon University of Japan. They have devised a way to use lasers to flip the magnetic memory bit in hard drives. Currently, as it is, data is stored on hard drives via magnetic moments that are either in an ‘up’ or ‘down’ position. Then, a certain number of ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ correspond to a binary bit, which then in turn correspond to a piece of data as a whole. An actuator arm with a head at one end and a voice coil on the other control the amount of electricity that gets through the voice coil and on to the platter(the spinning disk inside) which may be spinning at speeds upwards of 15,000RPM. The physicists’ hard drive would use a laser concentrated to 5 micrometers on a piece of magnetic film. The pulse used to flip the bit would be 40 femtoseconds (10-15 s). “Ok, who cares and what does that mean?” Well it means that hard drives will be able to access data 50,000 times faster. Let’s put this in perspective: it takes you 10 minutes to get from your house to the grocery store, now we apply this hard drives speed to your trip now it only takes you 0.012 seconds to get to the store. This is an incredible feat and it is a commercially viable product. If a few minor kinks get worked out, like finding materials with a higher coercivity than the gadolinium, iron, cobalt alloy that they used in the experiments, the hard drives could be on the market in less than 10 years. One of the researchers has already patented the process, he says that anyone could do what they did the only problem would be concentrating a laser to a 50 micrometer spot. By the way 50 micrometers is smaller than the wavelength of the laser itself. So the Hammermill box will soon be a thing of the past, well at least in this instance…
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/30762
Labels: computers, Computing, Electronics, Industry
Energy Directions
Crude oil prices have held pretty firmly to over $70 a barrel for well over a year. With this price structure comes opportunity for some businesses and individuals.
Marathon Oil made the news this week by investing $5.6 Billion in oil sand exploration and development.
CALGARY/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fat wallets and limited opportunities elsewhere may continue to push acquisitions in Canada's oil sands region, analysts say, though soaring costs may leave the sector open to only the very biggest companies.
Earlier this week U.S. refiner Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) agreed to pay $5.56 billion for Western Oil Sands Ltd. (WTO.TO: Quote, Profile, Research), an eight-year old firm whose only operating asset is a 20 percent stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project run by Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research).
The agreement is the latest in a series of big-ticket deals that have extended the reach of some of the globe's biggest oil and gas players into the muskeg and forests of northern Alberta, where an estimated 174 billion barrels of oil lie trapped in sand, a resource second only to Saudi Arabia's.
Marathon joins the Canada sand oil club with Exxon, Shell oil and Chevron. High oil prices are only part of the story. Instability of the Middle East and fears of Venezuela and other nations nationalizing their resources, are causing developers concerns. The higher prices of oil sands and shale oils.
BP is staying out of the feeding frenzy, instead they are choosing to invest in alternative energy. Industries know that stability in our future necessitates moving our dependence from unstable suppliers. Because of a changing market we at Process Control Outlet are making solar energy becomes a part of our future. Adapting is what allows growth and leadership in an ever evolving world.
Labels: Industry
USB-503 from Measurement Computing
Things always seem to happen when we are away or not looking. A circuit trips a fault condition or a stall. If the equipment involves a modern DCS system we might be able to figure out what happened if we can trend some monitored points.
Measurement Computing has some
kewl new devices that might prove interesting. They are USB remote data loggers. The idea is to plug the devices into a USB port. Set it up where you need it and log away. To view the data all one has to do is connect back up to the USB port download and view. They come in a couple different flavors. Temperature Current (4-20) and Voltage (0-30V) Sounds to good to be true. I had to have one if these!! I opted for the Voltage unit, the
USB-503. It could i could stick a resister in series to do some current monitoring if I needed to.
I receive a unit about 2 weeks ago, and although the logger checked the voltages correctly. the clock logged the time in to quickly. It was as though the the clock was about 10 times to fast. I called Measurement Computing and they exchanged a new one right to me. As always their service is excellent and flawless.
The Unit consist of a CD with the Data logging Software, instruction pamphlet, a 3.6V 1/2AA lithium battery and the unit itself. The software is pretty self explanatory. There are 3 functions:
- Setup Data logger. One can set up the logger to take measurements from avery 10 seconds to every 12 hours. At every 10 seconds will log up to 3 days 16 hours. One of the neat features is that the logger can be set up to to do linear unit conversions.
- Download data. This creates a CSV data file suitable for a spreadsheet program or supplied Viewer.
- View Data: Data is presented via a configurable and self-scaling trend graph suitable for presentation.
The Temperature models could be very handy for those who need to monitor food storage. The USB-502 does temperature and relative humidity and could be real handy in monitoring environmental control such as in the textile or farming industry. Its pretty hard to beat the prices on these things at under $100.
I do have a couple of nitpicks though. The 10 second maximum scan rate isn't really fast enough for the voltage logger. I would like to see a 1 second or at least a 2 second scan rate it would be more likely to catch momentary surges and dips on an overnight run. The alligator clips and leads are too big. The tinning on the leads make it impossible to insert into the unit without trimming them back.
All in all I rate my USB-503 as pretty useful though, and I'm finding more uses for it all the time. Measure Computing Corporation has some pretty neat USB devices that fit in real well with real world needs. We also also own a a couple of their PMD devices which we have used to perform some automated experimentation and proof of concept demonstrations. It is just further proof that one doesn't need a $100k DCS system to monitor and trend a point or to control a tiny process for a bit.
Labels: Electronics, Industry
Leave No Ladder Unclimbed
Talk about climbing the corporate ladder. Enrique Santacana has been named Region Manager of ABB North America and President & CEO of ABB, Inc. This promotion to some may not seem surprising, considering Santacana’s history. Let’s begin with his humble beginnings: a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, a Master of Engineering Degree in Electric Power Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Master of Business Administration Degree from Duke University. Since his start at ABB in 1977 he has been on his way to the top. He has held several positions throughout his career: head of ABB’s Power Technology Division, Vice President and General Manager of Medium Voltage Products, Vice President and Director of ABB Power T&D Company’s Electric Systems Technology Institute, and Vice President and General Manager of the ABB T&D Company’s Electric Metering and Control Business. As you can see he has been busy over the last three decades. He aided in the turnaround of ABB’s performance and culture change. The last ABB company he was in charge of, ABB’s Power Products, grossed $2 Billion. So it is more than evident that Santacana knows how to get things done. Mr. Santacana I think you can use the elevator now.
Labels: Industry
Invensys Aquires Cimnet
Last week
Invensys announced completing the acquisition of
Cimnet.
Invensys today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Cimnet, Inc (OTC BB: CIMK), a Manufacturing Execution System ("MES") software company based in Pennsylvania, USA, and this acquisition is now being fully integrated into the Wonderware software business unit of Invensys. This acquisition has closed under the terms of the original agreement that was announced on May 3, 2007.
Existing Cimnet offerings will continue to be made available and enhanced for customers under the Wonderware Factelligence and the Wonderware DNC Professional brands. In addition, the acquired MES technology offerings are being integrated with Invensys' open industry standard based, ArchestrA technology, to ensure rapid deployment and ease of use by the large Invensys and Wonderware installed base of over 100,000 plants around the world.
Wonderware is one aquistion of Invensys that has enjoyed dramatic growth after being aquired by Invensys. If there is any such thing in this industry its become the defacto standard.
Labels: Computing, Industry
