Instrumentation and Control News

The links on these old News Pages may be changed or expired since the page first appeared. Little if any editing is done on these.

News is also accessible from back numbers of Readout see the Readout Home Page.

Earlier editions may be found through the archive.

• Latest member of VGX family of high performance data acquisition solutions- The VGD4 from Pentland Systems, packs 96 individual 12-bit analog to digital converters into two VME slots offering very high channel density simultaneous sampling. This provides solutions to demanding applications such as control, test, simulation and experimental research where many analog signals require to be digitised quickly at the same moment in time. Pentland's analog I/O expertise has been employed to ensure accurate measurements are guaranteed. Accuracy can be maintained with the provision of a characterised calibration PROM. A 16-bit version of the VGD4 will be announced in the near future.

• Customer needs addressed with new high & low support of PC-based control - Steeplechase Software recently announced that its Visual Logic Controller (VLC), a software solution for PC-based control, will now support two new levels of I/O tags: a 256 tag version and a 16,000 tag version. These two new products, added to Steeplechases existing 4,096 tag solution, provide product continuity across a broad range of applications. The 256 version of the VLC is available immediately from Steeplechase and its authorized distributors. The 16K version will be available later in 4Q96.

• New President - Luciano Maiani, president of Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics is to be the next president of CERN.

• News Letter - Steam for Today is the front page headline in the latest newsletter from Spirax Sarco. It also looks at pneumatic tempearture controls, and orifice plate flowmeters. Get your copy from Spirax Sarco Ltd

• Distributed Temp Measurement made easy - Temperatutre monitoring on Lonworks is easy with Biotata's new RTD-Lon, Graham Collins of Biodata tells us. Measuring a compact 120x60x40mm, RTD-Lon fits in the palm of the hand, providing four channels and monitors temperatures in the range -200 to 800 deg C.
• Transient capture analyser - Endevco UK has launched a new transient capture analyser featuring four channels and computer control. More information from Barry Longbottom on +44 1763 261311.
• Rack mount chassis - The MCH-202 from Amplicon Liveline is a versatile 19in rack mount chassis which complies with the EIARS-310C standard. It comes with a 12 slot ISA passive backplane which can be installed by a 12 to 14 slot ISA/PCI passive backplane.
• Low-cost 55W AC/DC power supply - A new low-cost AC/DC power supply (NAN55) from Computer Product provides system integrators and OEMs with simple means of handling increased power demands from upgraded electronic systems.

Cylinder Hotline - Camozzi Pneumatics Ltd are now providing their standard and non-standard mini-cylinders on a guaranteed and surcharge free 24 hour delivery throughout the UK. Phone +44 1203 329898.

• Fieldbus Special - the November issue of Intech, ISA's international journal of I&C for this month is dedicated to a study of Fieldbus and may help to clear some of the controversy from this issue. Well we live in hope!

• Nov Newsletter arrives - One of the highlights of the month in the Readout office is the arrival of Industrial Controls Intelligence & the PLC Insiders Newsletter. the November issue does not disappoint either. Short pity articles, incisive comment and humour are the hall marks of this publication with real insider information on ourt industry. This issue includes a 16 page all text report on ISA'96. Send all subscriptions of $195.00 pa (a snip at the price) to Jack Grenard and get this, if you are outside of the US your copy will be mailed to you air-mail at no extra cost. Nice one Jack, there is a world beyond the Florida Keys...... BTW tell Jack that Readout sent you. and that he owes me (another) pint!
• Field to web gateway - IO Ltd has launched a means of transferring real time dat from fieldbus networks, PLCs and other plant devices onto the World Wide Web, creating a powerful and economic way of monitoring, supervising or diagnosing industrial equipment.
• Another newsletter - The November issue of Divice Net News from the Open DeviceNet Vendor Association (ODVA) has also just arrived. They are highlighting the ODVA Anual Meeting Programme for 27/28 Feb 1997 in Orlando, Florida, US. They also outline some of the developments to their web site including the availability of Electronic Data Sheet Files (EDS Files). The URL again is http://www.odva.org
• British Instruments - GAMBICA, the Association for the Instrumentation, Control and Automation Industry in the UK have published buyers guides covering the following areas.
  General Purpose Enclosures
  System Integrators
  Environmental Monitoring and Pollution Control
  They may be contacted at +44 171 793 3050 or through the Commercial Section of your local British Embassy.
• New managing director - The Meggit Mobrey group has appointed Steve Dowling as Managing Director with responsibilities in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Singapore, Sweden and Great Britain. He plans to put a fresh emphasis on customer service and has already doubled the companies R&D budget.
• Flat surface self cleaning pH and ORP - SensoreX have announced a new electrode, the DA Series. This electrode series is designed as a ground lopp interrupt electrode where installations suffer from electrical ground problems. The most common symptom is that the system calibrates and works fine outside the tank or line but once installed the system reads incorrectly. This new electrode combats this problem by utilizing a solution ground and internal battery powered ground interrupt preamp circuit.

• Process data over the net - PC Soft has unveiled what it claims to be the first integrated Java-based Internet/Intranet solution for process control environments, providing reliable, inexpensive remote and mobile access to process control systems using a standard internet browser such as Netscape. WizBrows software integrates with their popular Wizcon Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition software to allow remote and mobile operators to view process control applications through Wizcon. Wizbrows will be shipping first quarter of 1997. More details from Julie Brown on +44 1604 603355.
• MPPOI'97 - The fourth annual conference on Massively Parallel Processing Architectures using Optical Interconnections (MPPOI'97) will be held on June 22-24, 1997 in the Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Canada. Papers are requested and cantact should be made with Dr. Eugen Schenfeld

• Irish Signals and Systems Conference - is a forum for presentation of original research, both basic and applied, and exchange of ideas in a broad area of signal processing, control and communications. It is scheduled 26th and 27th of June 1997 in Magee College at the only walled city in Ireland, Derry City. (And believe me June in Ireland is very heaven!!)
• Rheology in Pacific! - The 2nd Pacific Rim Conference on Rheology (PRCR2) is organised by the Australian Society of Rheology (27/31 July 1997) It provides an international forum to showcase the rheological research in the Pacific Rim Region. All scientists and engineers interested in rheology are invited to participate in this conference. Contact Christine Collis for more details.
• ECC97 - The European Control Conference will take place from the 1st of July 1997 to the 4th of July 1997 at the Brussels campus of the Universite Catholique de Louvain. The European Control Conference is organised every two years with the aim to stimulate contacts between scientists who are active in the area of Systems and Control and to promote scientific exchange within the European community and between Europe and other parts of the world. The scope of the conference includes all aspects of Systems and Control, and ranges from fundamental research to applications in process control and advanced technology.

• Highly measurement circuit - A NASA engineer, Karl Anderson, has developed the Anderson Current Loop Circuit which is claimed to be the most accurate yet devised. It has been patented and the Mid-Atlantic Technology Applications Centre (MTAC) says that it is available for licensing.
• New standard's committee - ISA's Enterprise/Control Integration Committee, designated SP95, is to begin work on a new standard. The purpose of the standard will be to define the interface between control systems and other enterprise systems.
• ISA upgrades South America - ISA has created a new District 4, giving South American direct representation on the ISA Board for the first time ever. Carlos R. Liboni was elected as the new District 4 Vice President. A Senior member of ISA since 1988, Liboni is former Chairman of the South America Region and is currently Chairman of the SocietyÍs International Development Council. He is International VP of SMAR International.

• Ray Malloy dies - We have just learned of the death of Ray Malloy, an ebbuliant ISA activist who was particularly influential in the Publications Department of the society. He was 59. Ar dheis Dé go raibh sé.
• Conserving combustion costs - The Conserver IV range has been a direct response to customer requirements and is reflected in the innovative design. The range comprises two new monitoring instruments by Land Combustion, which will supply the vital data required to reduce the corrosive effects of SO3 and achieve minimum safe emission exit temperatures. Call David Bellamy on +44 1246 417691 for all the details.

• Rotary and linear positioning tables and stages - Parker Electromechanical (Digiplan) has just published a catalogue providing a definitive guide to the selection and use of linear and rotary positioning tables and tables. Get your copy from Sales.
• Intellution acquires Wizdom - This important acquisition by a leading supplier of industrial automation software with what is arguably the world leader in soft logic control (SLC) software will present a formidble allience and a very useful arrow in the already large quiver of Emerson Electric.
• New current clamps to extend DMM capabilities - Fluke Corporation, one of the acknowledged world leaders in compact, professional electronic test tools has introduced two new current clamps that extend the current measuring capabilities of Digital Multimeters by providing convenient measurement of DC as well as AC current.
• 60 VMEBus Papers now available Containing some 60 papers running to almost 1000 pages, the proceedings of the VITA Europe Congress 1996 is probaply the largest collection of VMEbus knowledge to be published in the Ninties. It is available for StgP100.00 plus P&P from VITA Europe.
• Chemical sensor info - Select Systems have set up a site which covers pH, conductivity, as well as pION parameters. The URL is http://www.kspress.com/cheminet/select.
• Report offers insight into power source investigation - Solartron has published a comprehensive technical report detailing electrochemical impedance spectroscopy applications in power source research and development. Copies of the report are available directly from Pauline Taylor at Solartron.
• OPC Foundation announced - The OPEC Task Force, a five-company consortium formed to develop an OLE/COM-based specification for process and factory automation has announced the official release of Version 1 of the OPC specification. The release culminates 14 months of work by members, Fisher-Rosemount, Intellution, Intuitive Technology, Microsoft, Opto 22 and Rockwell software, with input from 90 other companies throughout the world.
  The Task Force also announced the formation of the OPC Foundation as an independant, non-profit organisation to which the Task Force has now transferred the OPC Technology.
• New F-R group - Fisher-Rosemount has announced the formation of a new group called Fisher-Rosemount Petroleum, created solely to provide "best value precision measurement solutions to the hydrocarbon industries." This group will be headquartered in Veenendaal in the Netherlands.

• "CHOICES, Perspectives on the Future of Automation Control," is the name of a paper by Matt Kucharski of Padilla Speer Beardsley which examines the topic from a refreshingly non-commercial viewpoint.
• Optimised performance in WTE plant - Martin GmbH fuer Umwelt und Energietechnik is currently one of the most active and successful companies in the waste-to-energy (WTE) market. They are using Agema infra red cameras to optimise the combustion performance in its newer conventional WTE plants as well as those based on the recently developed SYNCOM process. More details on this process and the instrumentation from +44 1525 375660.
• ISA mail list - The InTech mailing list is intended to be a vehicle for those working in instrumentation, control, and automation to use for sharing their problems, solutions, and insights. It is not a news channel. It is not for passive viewers.
  If someone out there has a vexing flow measurement problem, ask for help. If someone out there has determined a great way to detect and compensate for valve sticking, share it.
  It's a way to hold measurement and control discussions in a forum that has no geographic boundaries.
  Come on, get those keyboards working.
  (This and other mail lists may be found listed on our Newsgroup and Mail List Page, together with instructions on how to subscribe.)

• New Contact for Fieldcomms USA - Robert Powell is cordinator for the present phase of this conference scheduled for Boston, Mass, USA in June of 1997. (see also our Fieldbus Page. Coincidentily American Fieldbus Technology Leaders approved a three day technical program for FieldComms USA. According to a statement this "eschews vendor marketing presentations in favour of a hard hitting education curriculum for the end user."
• SCADA software on CD-ROM - As part of Vertel, a leading supplier in the field of telecommunications management network (TMN) products is holding a series of seminars in Europe both in Britain and on the mainland. The venues are London (19 Nov), Milan (21 Nov), Munich (26 Nov) and Paris (28 November). The European Contact is Suzanne Evans.
• ARC has an interesting web sites with links to Robotics sites and anmswers to questions.

• Board Level VME PowerPC Products - CETIA has recently enhanced its full line of the PowerEngine CVME Family by introducing the CVME 603e processor at a 133 MHz. Founded on the PowerPC 603e and 604 SBCs, the CETIA family line of products is capable of offering the OEM engineer a wide range of advantages which include powerful computing along with the flexibility needed for a multitude of application and environmental challenges, as well as CETIA's dedication to the PowerPC environment.
  This company also reports a $5m follow up order from the US's Lockheed Martin Federal Systems in Owego, N.Y for their PowerPC VME single board computers.

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.