31/12/04

PID Loop Tuning Pocket Guide Version 2 now available - ControlSoft's PID Loop Tuning Tips Pocket Guide has been expanded. Now it includes both open and closed loop tuning procedures, in addition to the original reference material of the first version. This eight-page publication was created to give engineers a short easy-to-use guide to tuning PID loops, and it includes a reference section that summarizes many of the more common controllers available.
To download a free copy of the latest version of the PID Loop Tuning Tips Pocket Guide, go to their website

Process show in France - Industrie Lyon 2005 is a major new industrial process trade fair to be held in odd years from March 2005. Organised by EXPOSIUM, France's premier organiser of trade fairs, it will be held in Lyons in Rhone Alpes, France's leading mechanical engineering region. Approximately 800 exhibitors will be grouped over 20,000sq m, hosting 20,000 French and international visitors.
Organised by Exposium, it will be held at Eurexpo in Lyons, south-east France, from 8-11 March 2005. EXPOSIUM, based in the Paris region, organises professional trade fairs in France.

Exhibition bows to market forces - Due to continuing economic difficulties in the biotech and life sciences industry and to the ongoing consolidation process within this sector, Munich Trade Fairs International (MMI) has decided not to hold the BioAnalytica trade show next year (2005).
Klaus Dittrich, managing director of MMI, commented: "Despite all of the current turbulence, the biotech industry is one of the most important markets for the future. MMI still believes that it is important to have a separate biotech trade show in Munich, which is Germany's largest biotech region. Nevertheless, we have to accept the fact that the marketing budgets of the manufacturers are not sufficient for the successful development and establishment of a new trade show event. Keeping close contact with our exhibitor advisory board, the industry, the biotech regions and the political and academic communities, we will clarify whether it is possible to realize an annual platform at the Munich location for the topic of biotechnology. In any event, biotechnology will still be given a significant presentation platform at Analytica, which is held every two years. At Analytica 2004, 50 % of the exhibitors - approximately 500 companies - presented products and solutions from the area of biotechnology. This made that event one of the most important biotech events in Europe."
The next Analytica will be held from 25 - 28 April 2006 at the New Munich Trade Fair Center.

Programmable bargraphs - The BG101P and BG202P Pro Series Programmable Bargraphs manufactured by Ametek/Dixson are now available from Vydas International Marketing complementing an extensive range of bargraph instrumentation. The "PRO" (PROgrammable) Series bargraphs are the ideal choice for new applications, or for the replacement of switchboard meters, obsoleteindicators, and set point controllers. These bargraphs are appropriate in any application where moving pointer meters have been used in the past, and in applications where greater accuracy, readability, and reliability are desirable.

Explosive growth leads to relocation - Due to unprecedented growth, ExperTune is proud to announce our relocation to the Lake Country Research Center, Hartland WI (US). During the past two years the com pany has quickly obtained significant market share for its PlantTriage, plantwide monitoring system. As a result operations have had to expand to meet this demand. Development, sales, and operations have generated demand for new office space. In addition to accommodating this growth, the new offices allow them to expand its in-house customer training courses.

Office opened in China - The HART Communication Foundation (HCF) announces the opening of a new technology support office in Shanghai, (CN). The new office is being established to better serve industry needs for HART Communication in this important and rapidly growing world area.

Acquisition - Sun Capital Partners has announced the completion by one of its affiliates of the purchase of Honeywell International's Performance Fibers business unit.

Monitoring tools update released - The Eclipse Test & Performance Tools Platform (TPTP) Project, a top-level project in the Eclipse Foundation, announced that the TPTP release 3.2 will be available on the Eclipse Foundation website this week. TPTP 3.2 is the second significant platform release since the August 2004 creation of the TPTP Project, an evolution of the previous Eclipse 'Hyades' Project.
The Eclipse TPTP Project provides an open, standards-based platform supplying powerful frameworks and services for the development of software test and performance tools that are used throughout the application lifecycle from early testing to production application monitoring. TPTP 3.2 provides significant enhancements to the platform's user interface, data-collection and Java tracing system. The platform's own testing facilities helped with the testing of these enhancements

European electronics industry names product of the year - National Instruments today announced NI LabVIEW 7.1 graphical development environment received the Product of the Year award at the 2004 European Electronics Industry Awards held in Germany last month. The Product of the Year award recognises a new electronics product that stands out in the areas of design, innovation and usability and is successful in addressing a specific application.

Controller to go all the way! - British distributor and system integrator Display Solutions has announced the availability of the Boxer series of four ruggedised industrial controllers, which have been developed to go the distance in the most testing conditions. This is a brand-new platform designed by AAEON, meets the strong demands emerging from the current market for standalone and blind node control PCs.
The BOXER series of products are structured for high performance based on the following "embedded" features: fanless, compact, robust, low power, vibration/shock protection, wide operating temperature, complete certification and embedded OS support. BOXER is a Ready-To-Use platform targeted at all vertical markets and is ideally suited to harsh environments.

Figures released - CAN in Automation has conducted a market research to find out the numbers of CANopen devices sold in the years 2003 and 2004, as well as the expected figures for 2005. Here are the Results.

Award nominees sought - The HART Communication Foundation (HCF) is seeking nominees for the HART Plant of the Year for 2005. The award is presented annually to recognize innovative use of HART Communication in real-time industrial process plant applications around the globe. Nominations are encouraged from all world areas and will be accepted through May 31 through the website.

Exam Schedule announced - ISA - The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society has announced its 2005 exam schedule for the Certified Industrial Maintenance Mechanics (CIMM) program. The CIMM exam sessions are scheduled for March 19th, July 16th, October 8th, and December 10th of 2005. The application deadlines for the respective exam dates are, February 4th, June 3rd, August 26th, and October 28th. ISA will also hold a special exam session at the ISA EXPO 2005, which will be held on October 27th in Chicago, Illinois.
See our report on ISA Expo 2004 and previous shows.

Safety chip - CAN in Automation (CiA) is going to show the CANopen Safety Chip (CSC01) at the Embedded World exhibition in Nuernberg 2005 (D). The 16-bit micro-controller with pre-programmed and pre-certified CANopen Safety protocol on-chip was certified by the TUeV Rheinland for safety-relevant applications up to safety integrity level 3 (SIL3) according to IEC 61508 as well as SK 4 (Sicherheitsklasse 4) according to EN 954-1. The CSC01 is designed for usage in safety-relevant devices such as sensors (emergency switches, light grids, safety mats, etc), actuators (safety-relevant relays, drives, etc.) or a mixture of both. The chip simplifies the design and speeds up the time-to-market of safety-relevant devices since the safety protocol is already implemented and certified.

Innovation awards event to spotlights high-tech's best achievements - EDN Magazine, the design publication for electrical engineers, will host the 15th annual Innovation Awards gala event in March. Instituted in 1990, the Innovation Awards honor the people, products and technologies that have shaped the semiconductor industry over the past year. In addition to recognizing the innovators of today, the program also nurtures the award-winning designers of tomorrow through an annual contribution to engineering education. A portion of the proceeds from the Innovation Awards ceremony is donated to the engineering university of the Innovator of the Year's choice.
Relationship is part of initiative to provide preferred device configuration based on existing and emerging industry standards - Rockwell Automation and Endress+Hauser announced that they are working together to provide customers with more convenient, standards-compliant methods for configuring a wide range of process instruments.
This news from Endress & Hauser and Rockwell Automation

Inventions improve protected distribution of enterprise content and composite digital works - ContentGuard, leading holder of Digital Rights Management (DRM) intellectual property, announced today that it has added five new DRM patents; one by the US Patent and Trademark Office, three by the European Patent Office and one by the Japanese Patent Office, to its broad patent portfolio.

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Just Published No. 22 METROLOGY & MEASUREMENT IEC 60044-SER Ed. 1.0 (2004-04) Instrument transformers - ALL PARTS This pack contains all parts to IEC 60044 ICS codes: 17.220.20, 29.180. TC 38 740 pages SAFETY IEC 60695-11-5 Ed. 1.0 (2004-12) - Preview - HIGHLIGHT Fire hazard testing - Part 11-5: Test flames - Needle-flame test method - Apparatus, confirmatory test arrangement and guidance Specifies a needle-flame test to simulate the effect of a small flame which may result from fault conditions, in order to assess by a simulation technique the fire hazard. It is applicable to electrotechnical equipment, its sub-assemblies and components and to solid electrical insulating materials or other combustible materials. This first edition of IEC 60695-11-5 cancels and replaces the second edition of IEC 60695-2-2, issued in 1991 and its amendment 1 (1994). It also constitutes a technical revision. The structure of this standard remains essentially the same with some major new changes and concepts added: - The scope has been broadened to allow this test method to also simulate the effects of small flames from outside the equipment. - A new concept has been added which allows the burner to be moved during the test to avoid dripping material from falling onto the tip of the burner tube. - The burner tube material is now a referenced source. - The reference for the copper block material has changed. - The ISO publication (ISO 1337) has been withdrawn with no replacement. A new callout is now used. - Informative Annex B and a bibliography have been added. It has the status of a basic safety publication in accordance with IEC Guide 104. ICS codes: 13.220.40, 29.020. TC 89 39 pages

Cost effective solution for short-wave wireless applications - MaxStream has adopted the Freescale Semiconductor platform for an assortment of ZigBee wireless products. In the first quarter of 2005, MaxStream will introduce the FCC and CE-type approved XBee family, which incorporates Freescale's ZigBee-ready and 802.15.4 chipsets onto MaxStream's RF modules. The XBee line of RF modules and stand-alone connectivity solutions will allow OEMs to add wireless capabilities to their products easily and quickly.
The ZigBee wireless standard is a cost effective solution for connecting electronic devices in a short-range wireless mesh network.

High efficiency DC-DC converter for power over Ethernet applications - New to the PowerStax range from Advanced Power Conversion PLC of Farnborough (GB), is the H201 series DC-DC converter, specially designed for Power-over-Ethernet applications. Developed to comply with the IEEE 802.3af standard 2,250VDC isolation, the Powerstax H201 range provides up to 200W of power in an industry standard half-brick package size 61.0mm x 57.9mm x 12.7mm (2.40 x 2.30 x 0.40in).

Module with axial screw termination - Harting has expanded its Han-Modular(R) connector family with the introduction of a new version of the Han C industrial connector module featuring axial screw termination.

New measuring stations add speed and versatility to PC-Based measurement system - Yokogawa has added two new high-performance measuring stations which enhance the speed and ease of use of its WE7000 Series PC-based measurement system. The new WE500 and WE900 are 5-slot and 9-slot mounting units for the WE7000 measurement modules. Each consists of a case, power supply and CPU based on a 32-bit 150 MHz RISC processor. USB and Ethernet communication facilities are built in, making the use of a separate communication module unnecessary.

Optimised cooling of injection mould tools cuts cost - A new system that automatically determines the optimum residual cooling time for injection moulding tools, developed by Kistler Instruments, can reduce cycle time by 20% producing typical cost savings of over 40k Euro per annum per machine. Working with the University of South Westphalia (D), Kistler ran tests on 700 moulding tools that proved the cycle time in 70% is at least 20% longer than necessary. The new technique uses mould cavity pressure and surface temperature of the moulded product to control the residual cooling time to ensure optimum product geometry and cooling time irrespective of process fluctuations. Using the new Kistler Type 5155A Smart Charge Amplifier, the self-optimising demoulding system can be integrated into most injection moulding machines to provide automatic control of residual cooling time for maximum production efficiency and minimum wastage.

FF Launches "User's Corner" - The Fieldbus Foundation has announced the creation of "User's Corner." Part of Fieldbus Forums, the User's Corner is a convenient, web-based interface to the latest FF end user stories, successes and references.
More on our Fieldbus News Pages.

Cost Saving Fieldbus Process JBs introduced - MTL Instruments has launched its new series of Process JB Junction Boxes for fieldbus installations. These Process JBs are designed for mounting Megablock fieldbus wiring components, terminators, spur connectors and surge protection devices. The standard proven designs of the JBs reduce project engineering costs, while their corrosion resistant materials make them suitable for the harshest of environments. Process JBs are easy to install and maintain.

Baileys Cream production passes test - Diageo Baileys Global Supply have successfully completed Factory Acceptance Testing on the Provideam manufacturing productivity solution. Diageo have already seen the benefits of Provideam on one bottling line and it is intended to roll Provideam out on their other lines. Provideam is an extremely powerful, easy to use software tool which enables users to analyse Overall Equipment Effectivity (O.E.E.), Yield, Machine Downtime, Slow Running, Defects etc. (We are not told how sensually indulgent the test was!!!!)
Provideam collects data automatically from almost all types of automated machine, moulding machine, CNC machine etc. It is a web enabled application with an enterprise-class database allowing for both real-time and historical data analysis through user configurable reports and views.