Instrumentation Monthly Test | Measurement | Control
Compressors are responsible for 10% of all the power consumed in a mature industrial society like the UK and Ireland. Frequently 10% or more of this air will be wasted because of leakage caused by poor maintenance, bad design of air lines, acidic condensate attacking seals and joints, etc.
Regular audits on the power consumed, flow, pressure, dew point and leakage need to be carried out, but this type of measurement is rare, states Matthew Harrison, regional sales manager at Beko Technologies.
However, he added: “Smart companies are realising that you can’t know too much about what is happening within your compressed air network. You can avoid problems and be sure that you are operating to an efficiency that is acceptable if you regularly even better have a permanent output of key parameters within the system. Now that the DS500 is available it is very easy for me and Beko Technologies colleagues to monitor up to 12 outputs per DS500 installed which is plenty for the normal compressed air system. These outputs are not limited to the devices that we market but could for example use pulse outputs for gas metering or PT100/PT1000 or KTY temperature sensors and many others. The DS500 has the capability of 12 inputs, but can also be offered with the option o 4 or 8 inputs. What is important is that these inputs can be digital or analogue. Before with the older DS300 we only had the capability of 2 digital and 2 analogues, so we were not able to offer multiple measuring points.
“This makes it very easy for BEKO TECHNOLOGIES to give the client a complete picture of his system tailored to the KPIs that are important to him.”
With the DS500 installed the factory engineer can measure 12 outputs of his own choice and can record, indicate and evaluate the data. This enables him to be constantly aware of his running costs and assist in spotting situations that could be troublesome without corrective action. For example a rising dew point could be too much flow, but with the measurement that can be quickly eliminated, it could have a dirty heat exchanger which can be cleaned or it could be losing gas in which case a qualified refrigeration engineer would be required. The principle is clearly that this knowledge helps in the management of the system.
The data measured by the DS500 is easily transferrable to a PC via a USB stick or GSM module or Ethernet connection to suit the frequency of information required by the client. Some compressor data needs to be inputted relating to the type, performance, variable or fixed speed motor. Then once this is done a range of graphical outputs are available at a glance and at the touch of a button the client can, for example, see: Energy cost; Compressed air costl Leakage cost; Compressor load/unload times; Specific energy of the compressor; etc.
