------------------------Monitor------------------------- The Newsletter for PC-Based Data Acquisition and Control Issue 33 www.windmill.co.uk April 2001 --------------------ISSN 1472-0221---------------------- Hello, and welcome to Issue 33 of Monitor. This month we bring news of how Windmill's customisable drivers helped upgrade a pilot chemical plant, and how you can evaluate the software for free. We only send this newsletter to people who have subscribed - should you wish to cancel your free subscription please visit https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html CONTENTS ======== * Windmill News: Windmill's Flexibility Aids Data Logging from Pilot Plant * Exhibitions ________________________________________________________ Windmill News: Windmill's Flexibility Aids Data Logging from Pilot Plant ________________________________________________________ Until recently, a pilot plant for the manufacture of water treatment chemicals used an old DOS program to control its data loggers. The plant's Program Manager wanted to upgrade the software but feared he would have to write the program himself, as he could not find a flexible product that would accept custom-made drivers. Then he discovered Windmill software. "The Windmill software was a great find for me. The free download was used to evaluate application of the software to my datacq hardware. I then purchased a license for three installations." Jeff Castor, Program Manager, Hercules Pilot Plant Most of the water treatment chemicals manufactured by the plant are polymers, made by typical batch polymerisation processes (solution, emulsion and dispersion polymerisations). The plant consists of six reaction systems. It employs seven Molytek 2702 loggers, connected via an RS232 link to a PC by means of a code activated switch. The Windmill software suite could easily read and control the Molytek loggers through its serial driver. The suite also included a software Logger application to store and time-stamp many channels of different types of data. Process data logged from the plant by Windmill include: reactor temperature, reactor jacket temperatures (supply and return), reactor jacket flowrate, reactor pressure, overhead temperatures (vapour, distillate, condenser coolant) and various weights, reagent flows and process analytical instrument readings. Readings taken by Windmill are passed to various data processing tools for analysis and reporting, including Excel, RS/1 and TK!Solver. The Molytek 2702 was a state of the art logger in the 1980s. It is built of standard mechanical and electronic components and so, can, in theory, be maintained indefinitely. For that reason a lot of 2702s are still around. They make a good, reliable, hardware front end to a low speed data acquisition system. If you would like to evaluate the Windmill software our subscribers can download the free Windmill 4.3 suite and ComDebug program. ________________________________________________________ Exhibitions and Conferences ________________________________________________________ Every other month we list exhibitions and conferences related to data acquisition and control. 23-28 April Hannover Fair 2001 International fair featuring, amongst other things, factory automation, industrial software, microtechnology and automation. Over 7000 companies from over 60 countries are exhibiting. A day ticket costs 20 Euros. http://www.hannovermesse.de/ 2-3 May Instrumentation North The Royal Armoury, Leeds, UK For automation, data acquisition, sensors, signal conditioning, and so on. http://www.instrumentation.co.uk/ 8-10 May Sensor 2001 and Test 2001 Nuremberg, Germany Two exhibitions running side-by-side. Sensors 2001 is said to be the world's biggest fair for sensors, processing electronics, system solutions and related services. It covers diverse engineering branches, from consumer industry to automation technologies and the automobile industry. Test 2001 features measuring, materials testing, quality assurance and automotive techniques. Both exhibitions offer lectures and experiments. http://www.sensor2001.com/indexe.html http://www.sensorfairs.de/test/indexe.html 17-20 May Instrumentation and Control Expo Nehru Centre, Mumbai, India Provides an insight to the various technologies and applications available globally. http://www.india-tech.com/ 5-7 June Sensors Expo Spring Rosemont Convention Center, Chicago, IL Among their offerings are solid basics courses to ground you in fundamentals and the latest news on the hottest technologies. http://www.sensorsmag.com/expo/spring01/foratten.shtml 5-8 June ICAM Asia 2001 Singapore Expo International trade fair for industrial control, automation and measurement. 3-6 July Control & Instrumentation China 2001 http://www.psc2001.com/ ________________________________________________________ Next Month in Monitor ________________________________________________________ Many of you use Excel to analyse your data, and so next month we're starting a series of "Excel Corners", featuring hints, tips and macro examples. Hope you find it useful. ________________________________________________________ * Copyright Windmill Software Ltd * Reprinting permitted with this notice included * For more articles see https://www.windmill.co.uk We are happy for you to copy and distribute this newsletter, and use extracts from it on your own web site or publication, providing the above notice is included and a link back to our website is in place. An archive of previous issues is at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html and an index of articles at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html Windmill Software Ltd, PO Box 58, North District Office, Manchester, M8 8QR, UK Telephone: +44 (0)161 834 6688 Facsimile: +44 (0)161 833 2190 E-mail: monitor@windmillsoft.com https://www.windmill.co.uk/ https://www.windmillsoft.com/
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