Readout 98.03 April/May 1998

Basic details of most of these companies may be found in the Internet Directory of Instrumentation and Control, as well as in the Directory of Instrumentation in Ireland available from Readout.

Where Numbers (to be entered on the card) are given please e-mail me with this information together with your name, address and contact details (Phone & Fax) remembering that most of these companies will not have the benefit of e-mail as yet. We are set up to relay this type of request for information.

Remember to quote the particular number.

This issue included a survey of companies selling Flow Measuring Instruments.

News The Millennium Bug Six hundred Days and Counting Down! The end is nigh! The millennium bug or year 2000 problem has the potential to disrupt the entire world and any sector operating in it. While many organisations have a programme in place to tackle mainstream I.S. issues, the area of embedded systems has been sorely neglected. The IEE Guidelines define an embedded system as a comput-erised device used to control, monitor or assist the operation of equipment, machinery or plant. In many cases their embeddedness may be such that their presence is far from obvious to the casual observer. Unlike normal computers, compl-iance testing can be difficult or impossible to perform by anyone other than the manufacturer. Particularly for embedded systems used in regulated sectors such as the healthcare industry, validation of the compliance testing methodology is required to be commensurate with the risk involved. The Chief Executive of the (British) National Health Service has stated that the millennium bug is the "highest non-clinical priority" for healthcare providers, as failures of equipment and supplies will have serious consequences for patients. A further complication is high-lighted by the Irish Insurance federation which has informed its members that most commercial policies donÕt cover the conse-quences of Y2K failures, though insurers might offer coverage for policy holders who have taken all appropriate steps to achieve Y2K compliance. We have less than 600 days to surmount the challenge! Inside Front When Lightening strikes Joachim Schimanski discusses overvoltage protection in systems with intrinsically safe circuits. More information from PCAS at info@pcas.ie News from the Net I&C News from the InterNet. The effect of the year 2000 on control systems Nigel de Haas, IRCA-Certified Lead Auditor, looks at this very pertinent subject The ISA Ireland Section held a seminar on 28th April in Jurys Hotel, Cork, to increase public awareness of the impact of the year 2000 issue on plant control and related systems. This issue arises from the effect of the date rollover from 1999 to 2000 on any computer or item of plant equipment having an embedded micro-processor system which contains a date reference in its programs or microcode. Many older computer programs and firmware use the last two digits of the date to identify the year, and in the year 2000, these become "00". Plant equipment, which tends to be infrequently upgraded, is likely to fall into this category. The primary sources of faults are: ¥ 2 Digit Date System lockup arising from calculation errors. ¥ Date Rollover Date reset to 1980 or 1984 on older systems. ¥ Leap Year Error from 29/02/2000 if "00" is seen as 1900. ¥ Weekday Shift There is a 2-day weekday shift from 1900 to 2000. ¥ Programming Conventions and shortcuts used in programming. There are several public definitions of Y2K compli-ance requirements, such as the Peter de Jager's Year 2000 web site and the BSI/DISC PD2000-1 docu-ment provided on the British Standards Institution web site. A concise version might be:< ¥ Compliant: Will automatically increment without any problem before, on, or after the year 2000. ¥ Ready: Capable of being successfully incremented without any problem by prepared human intervention. ¥ Non-Compliant May enter unknown recoverable or non-recoverable fault state before, on, or after the year 2000. Although any plant item having an embedded system is potentially affected by the Y2K issue, the impact of a fault depends on its application, whether it can cause other related items to fail and the nature of the business in which it is used. Steps need to be taken to ensure that those items that are critical to production and legal liability are made compliant, or at least ready, in advance of the event horizon for the item. One alternative is to run an in-house Y2K compliance testing and certification programme to verify that both the equipment and any application program running in it are compliant or ready. Since this is an extremely resource intensive process, a second alternative is to seek Y2K compliance certifica-tion from individual vendors where possible. The vendor's capability, commitment and formal Y2K compliance testing methodology necessary to carry out the compliance certification process needs to be verified by an audit in advance, to justify confi-dence in the validity of the certification, and that any required upgrades, will be completed in time. This is one project that does not permit extra time! Some useful Y2K links ISA - The Internationa Society for Measurement & Control http://www.isa.org/techtalk.html The Mother of All Year 2000 Link Centers http://pw2.netcom.com/~helliott/00.htm IEE Technical Guidelines 9:1997 http://www.iee.org.uk/2000risk/

Company News Technology Ireland is 30 - Congratulations and continued success to Technology Ireland, which is 30 years old this month. Volume 1 was launched in April 1969 at a cover price of 3/6d (17.5p), and coincided with the country's Third Programme for Economic and Social Development under then Minister for Industry and Commerce, the late George Colley. It is generally regarded as the mother of technical publications in Ireland. Siemens distributor Insteco Ltd have announced their appointment as distributor for Siemens Instrumentation in Ireland. This includes their Pressure and DP Transmitters, Smart Valve Positioners, Ultrasonic Flowmeters, Controllers and Recorders. ProsCon moves By the time you receive this ProsCon Automation will have moved to new premises. Their new details are as follows: Proscon Automation Ltd Castle Bagot House Baldonnell Co Dublin Their new telephone number is 353 (0)1 4034 300 and their fax is 353 (0)1 4034 399. Another move DS Industrial Temperature Sensors have also moved from their old Arnott St premises in Dublin city to Unit 14 IDA Business Park, Whitestown, Tallaght, Dublin 24. Their numbers are 01 4511914 and fax 01 4512049. The Instrument People Peter Keane of Classic Technology spoke about Calibrators and Calibration with an assortment of instruments to illustrate his talk and the Cork Institute of Technology. Also at this meeting a cheque for £200.00 was presentedto the Student Section by the Ireland Section to help defray expenses for site visits to local industries. Training opportunities LANs in practice for I&C Engineers and Technicians The challenge for engineers and technicians today is to use proven networking technology such as Ethernet to transfer information efficiently with a control and instrumentation system or the office environment. This system must be correctly specified, designed and implemented to ensure optimum throughput of data and yet be cost effective. Instrument Data Communications (IDC) have announced a series of workshops designed to benefit instrumentation and control engineers, scientists and technicians who are involved in specifying, commissioning and debugging Ethernet and related systems in the I&C environment but who have little experience of these systems. The workshop also gives significant review of office type systems. It has been structured to cover the main concepts of Local Area Network and Ethernet and their applications in a modern automation, control and office systems environment. These two day practical workshops are scheduled for Belfast, Dublin and Cork in early November and Jeff Futcher of IDC is available on 01 473 3190 with full information. ISA Technical Meetings The February ISA Technical Meeting, held in Cork, & Limerick on the Compucal Package from Dornan R&D (see Readout 98.01 Inside Front article). Digging Deep! The March technical talk was on the Lee Tunnel, which is scheduled to be in full operation by the end of the year. The speaker was Paul Ducker from PDS. Product News Automation tools at UCC Summit Design has supplied five seats of its Visual HDL package at UCC, helping students learn more about up-to-the- minute design auto-mation tools a put their know-ledge into practice. The department of Electrical Engineering and Microel-ectronics has five floating licenses for the Visual HDL Prop PC software including simulator interfaces, which can be used by anyone on its 20-user Windows NT network. The software has been so successfully used by undergraduates working on a development project that the department is now evaluating the feasibility of introducing the Visual HDL into its lecture programme. Contact Eric Benhayoun for information. Low-cost emf In a world where financial considerations are becoming ever more important, value for money has become the major consideration in making your choice of a flow sensor. This is the reason Turbo (Flow Measurement Ltd), has introduced the MG 711/S low budget, flangeless (wafer) type magnetic flow sensor, specifically designed for applications in the water and waste water industries. This low cost sensor is suitable for installation between a wide range of flange types, e.g. DIN, ANSI, BS, JIS, AS etc. for sizes from DN 15 (1Ó for ANSI) up to DN 100 (4Ó). The lightweight but robust construction of the unit consists of a PVC flowtube in a nickel plated steel outer casing. Earthing is supplied as a standard via a stainless steel support ring built on to the upstream face of the sensor. The electrodes are 316 Ti stainless steel. The sensors are extremely lightweight, for example the DN 25 is only 1.4kg and the DN100 just 6.2kg. This lightweight construction allows it to be installed in plastic or steel flow tubes without the need for support or reinforcement. Any forces caused by unsupported flow tubes are distributed through the sensor outer steel casing ensuring that the plastic tube is not subjected to strain. Only minimal preparation work for installation is required. The sensor comes with connecting cable installed as standard. It is designed to go with all their pulsed dc ÒPÓ series converters. All sensors are wet calibrated to ± 0.5% of reading on their flow rig traceable to interna-tional standards. Despite the low price of the system the quality is exceptionally high as you would expect from an ISO 9001 quality company. Write 7210. Portable microohmmeter precise to 10microW The AOIP OM 10 is a por-table µohmmeter designed to measure four-wire resistances from low values (resolution 10µW) up to 50kW with the precision and quality of a lab ohmmeter. The instrument designed by AOIP of France operates on rechargeable batteries. Its dimensions are 120 x 65 x 245 mm. Although it is very precise, the OM 10 is easy to use. Measurements are displayed in 5 digits (50,000 counts) with compensation for EMF interference and ambient temperature. The rating, current type and temperature are also indicated. It also measures AC and DC voltages. Thanks to its compact and heavy-duty housing, the OM 10 is suited for on-site measurements and it can also be connected to the mains supply for use in a laboratory or in a production plant. The range of applications is wide and varied. The OM 10 can be used to measure resistance in cables or contacts, to measure metal-lization and earth bonding, or to test electrical components or mechanical links. AOIP is represented here by Manotherm. Contact AOIP Instrumentation for further information.

The Internet Directory of Instrumentation is the world wide Directory of Instrumentation and Control launched by BDI in May 1995.

The Instrumentation Signpost has interesting pointers for the I&C Professional.