Written by Dave Hall, Industry Manager- UK Process
Getting process signals back from instruments on plant to the controller via copper cables can be an expensive and time consuming exercise, particularly if the instrument lies within an Ex or Exd area.
In my experience, while discussing applications with project engineers working in various industries –particularly in the water industry– the cost and time involved for contractors to dig trenches and lay cables is increasing and takes long periods of time to complete and test.
Similar comments are made by plant engineers in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries where costs are magnified when having to send signals across hazardous Ex areas – more time and expense is incurred with contractors having to go through Health & Safety training to enable them to work in hazardous areas.
To eliminate most of these costs, companies have turned to the Radioline wireless system from Phoenix Contact. We have installed over 30 of these systems within the water industry over the past 5 to 6 years. Radioline is being used successfully to transmit both analogue and digital signals from a moving bridge on treatment beds back to a central controller, some 3Km away. It has also been successfully used on energy monitoring projects, on isolated pumping stations transmitting signals serially back to the control room and subsequently by Ethernet back to the main SCADA system.
In the pharmaceutical industry Radioline is being used in a large plant sending signals from serial signals monitoring any gas leakages given off storage tanks sited within an Ex area. On this application the customer was so pleased with the results that they expanded the system to double the number of tanks monitored.
Other examples of process applications can be found in the refineries – Radlioline is being used successfully on several tank monitoring projects, both on refineries and oil storage depots.
The Radioline wireless system eliminates the need for cables, along with saving time and effort. It can transmit digital, analogue, serial 485/232, temperature signals simultaneously- or a combination of any- safely and reliably over distances of up to 20km.
Advantages of the Radioline system:
- Ex Approved
- No tuning
- Expandable up to 256 signals per station
- Simple point to point or more complex self-healing mesh systems
- Easy I/O mapping using thumb wheel – simple to set up with no programming
- Hot swappable using the power bus
- Adjustable data rates.
If you have an application – contact Dave for a FREE site survey. Tel: 07970 498812 or email: dhall@phoenixcontact.com
