Wireless data acquisition improves paper mill
May 2001
Data Acquisition & Telemetry
Setting up instrumentation to measure process instabilities in a paper mill, a difficult environment for routing cables, can be a great challenge. A good solution was achieved by combining National Instruments' SCXI and LabVIEW, with ViaSat's MiniDAT for wireless data acquisition.
AstenJohnson designs, manufactures, and markets paper machine clothing for all sections of the paper machine. Paper machine clothing is a highly engineered textile fabric installed on paper machines to carry the paper stock through each stage of the paper-making process.
To meet customer needs, AstenJohnson provides the Diagnostic Service Group, comprised of papermakers and diagnostic engineers, to help the customer troubleshoot, identify, and solve machine productivity issues. When a problem cannot be identified using conventional papermaking methods, they use electronic diagnostic equipment to measure process instabilities.
Typical machine set-up
All signals are conditioned using the National Instruments SCXI-1001, 12-slot chassis. This chassis is equipped with SCXI modules that provide 34 channels of signal conditioning for pressure, vibration, triggers, and several specialty sensors. The chassis is set up in multiplexed mode using the NI-DAQ software driver and a DAQCard-AI-16XE-50 PCMCIA card. All signals are recorded and analysed using a custom analysis package written specifically for AstenJohnson in LabVIEW.
Most of the required test points are located on the wet end of the machine in the stock approach system. So the SCXI chassis and laptop computer are set up on the wet end of the machine and 100 ft (30,5 m) cables are dispatched to the individual test points in the approach system, including the basement. To measure the impact the variations in the stock approach system have on the sheet quality, the on-line basis weight signal is accessed on the dry end of the machine. The distance between the wet and dry end of many of the machines measured is typically 120 to 150 metres and requires stringing 100 ft (30,5 m) cables together from one end of the machine to the other. The cables pose an extreme safety risk because they must be laid on the floor and routed around section drives, line shafts and stock chests.
Wireless data acquisition
ViaSat MiniDAT provides a high-speed, multichannel, networked, wireless link between the dry end process signals and laptop computer simultaneously accessing data from the SCXI chassis, eliminating the need to run long cables from one end of the machine to the other.
By connecting the MiniDAT directly to the SCXI-1001 chassis, direct access to all signals from a remote location was possible. This is especially useful when making changes to machine operating parameters. The analyst and laptop computer could be located in the machine control room, providing direct feedback of the changes on the papermaking process. Each MiniDAT has its own IP address making it possible to access several devices at various locations on the machine. Because of this, installing the diagnostic instrumentation at a mill site and troubleshooting over the Internet was considered.
The MiniDAT was also used to access signals from an SCXI-1000, 4-slot chassis. This chassis provides 15 channels of pressure, trigger, and specialty sensor signal conditioning. Effective use is made of MiniDAT where mill sites provide no immediate access for the 100 ft cables to be run to pressure tap locations in the basement of the machine. By using the MiniDAT, AstenJohnson access the signals from the SCXI-1000 chassis through the concrete machine room floor.
National Instruments
082 877 8530
[email protected]
www.ni.com/southafrica
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