Omniflex believes that its OmniWatch is a monitoring system with a difference. Sixteen pressures (4 to 20 mA) can be monitored simultaneously - without multiplexing and there are no rotary switches. The inputs may be from either two, or four wire pressure sensing devices. The resulting 4 to 20 mA signals can be represented as engineering units on the display as standard features.
Alarms and alarm annunciation
Each input has an alarm and trip set-point allocated to it, the set-points are configurable via the front panel keypad. Each set-point is represented by an LED indicator that can be configured with an optional annunciator sequence forcing an operator to silence the audible alarm and acknowledge it. An auto reset or manual reset option can be chosen to trap alarms.
Pressure channel display
Each pressure channel may be viewed in turn on the front panel LCD display with its set-points by using a scroll button. Each channel has a 20 character name tag that can be downloaded to the OmniWatch, which makes identification of the input easier on larger systems. OmniWatch has an option to automate the display so that the display automatically scrolls through the channels at a specified time interval.
Protection - alarm and trip outputs
Each set-point can have a relay or open collector output for the alarm status; these can be used to drive external devices when the set-points are reached. Protection systems can be implemented in this fashion, providing alarm annunciation or protection in shutting down the process.
Group alarm function
To save on individual relay outputs, group alarm functions can be used to bring up alarm for the attention of operators. There are four group alarms. One each for all set-point 1 s and set-point 2 s. And one group alarm each to function as a High-High or Low-Low common alarm. Every input is mapped to the group alarms.
Optional re-transmit
The 4 to 20 mA inputs can be re-transmitted to another device as isolated 4 to 20 mA outputs by simply fitting an analog output module to the OmniWatch.
Date and time stamp of alarms
Alarms, or trips, are date and time stamped as they occur. This is useful for stringent quality control systems where recording of alarm and trips are required and also for maintenance diagnostics where personnel are investigating reasons for the alarm or trip. The build up to the trip can be seen from the events saved in the history queue, up to 64 events are saved locally. These events are also available to the Conet local area network which can then route them to a scada database system.
Figure 1. OmniWatch monitoring pressure transmitters, providing indication, alarm and trips, sequence of events with date and time stamp
History log
OmniWatch has a history log that captures the last 64 trips and alarms - each with its date and time stamp - and these can be viewed via the front panel of the OmniWatch. Operators thus have access to the latest information.
Figure 2. Plant wide monitoring with scada and alarm events (date and time stamped) transmitted out of the plant
Local area network connections and scada
Up to 127 OmniWatch devices may be connected to a single twisted pair cable running the Omniflex local area network - Conet. Conet is supported by most scada packages and can thus acquire the information from OmniWatch devices including all date and time stamped information. The use of an OPC server also allows access to other client applications from the Windows environment.
For more information contact Ian Loudon, Omniflex, 031 207 7466, [email protected]
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