Monitoring Two Plants with Simultaneous Data Sharing

A manufacturer of custom circuit boards maintains solder reflow process lines in 2 manufacturing plants. The plants have a distance of one quarter of a mile between locations. The plant manager of Plant #1 needed to closely monitor temperatures during the reflow soldering process while sharing data recording temperature, rate, flow, line speed, etc., with the manager of Plant #2. The CAS customer had 3 older versions of 48-channel chart recorders installed in each plant (for 144 total channels). The process was maintained by phone calls and faxes among the plants, therefore the managers were required to exchange critical data via a process subject to time consuming bottlenecks. The plant managers also had to assure all other staff members access to much needed on- and off-site information from both plants to increase quality and productivity.

Due to the company chart recorders being older and due for replacement, CAS recommended the customer a more robust system that accommodated current sensors which had room for growth, self operational and could share data. The decision to install a dataTaker DT80 Data Logger in each plant connecting each system to four CEM20’s (Channel Expansion Modules) bringing the total capacity of each DT80 unit to 243 Single-Wire or 162 Two-Wire probes. The customer also supplied each plant with a Maple 15" LCD Display for local dedicated displays of the data gathered by the sensors attached to the CEM20’s. Both dataTaker DT80’s were connected to their plant's computer network so any company computer could login and view the data from either of these systems datashare in tandem through the company's ISP (Internet Service Provider). All staff, whether on-or off-site, is now able to go online and integrate the data, giving them instant access to the actual conditions and productivity of the two plants in real-time. The DT80 Data Loggers enable Ethernet, USB, or RS-232 communication with PC’s. Connections can be established locally, remotely or over the Internet. USB memory stick support is standard, as well as support for multiple SDI-12 sensor networks, internal web and FTP servers. For sufficient data acquisition, the four CEM20 units feature up to 60 analog inputs each and multiplex 20 input channels to DT8x logger input. Each channel of a CEM20 unit can be used for 2 isolated inputs or 3 common reference inputs--an extremely cost-effective ratio for any project.

The customer saw communication between the two plants increase immediately after installing the 2 DT80 units. All data acquisition in each plant is now managed and organized by one self-contained data logger which connects to every sensor in the building through its CEM20’s. Moreover, each plant's data is prominently showcased on a Maple 15'' LCD Display. Equally impressively, the DT80 data loggers are interfaced with their building's computer network, enabling any company PC to login and access all of this data. Even more options are available if the customer has further needs. Additional Maple Displays can be utilized to show more data in more locations. If heightened monitoring is desired, alarms can be configured in both DT80 units to alert key personnel to potential problems. Currently, up to 5 CEM units can be connected to the DT80 loggers, but if the customer anticipates having to monitor more sensors, the DT80 units can be replaced with DT85 loggers, which support up to 10 CEM units for a total of 618 Single-Wire or 412 Two-Wire probes. Other areas of application for these intelligent data logging products include process monitoring, temperature profiling, R&D, energy monitoring, pressure recording, flow rate and totalization.