HART Instrument and Ignition

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Thread Starter

dschmidt

I have a customer that has about 15 to 30 level sensors on tanks. The customer asked how he could leverage the sensors beyond their pressure reading. Because, when he bought the sensors, he knew they could also read the density of the fluid as well. Each sensor is HART enabled and the customer wants to integrate it into their Ignition SCADA. Any suggestions on getting HART sensor data into Ignition?
 
Ignition is only a SCADA software package that acquires its data from I/O using OPC. I assume that there is some type of PLC or remote I/O multiplexer somewhere. It would be helpful if the Analog Input cards of the I/O were enabled for HART. Unless this is the case, then the HART data is not available to the Ignition software.

Now to the main issue - tank level transmitters read one pressure at a single point in the tank. They do not read the density of the fluid in the tank - this is the data you need to convert a pressure into a tank level. It is possible to measure the pressure of the standing fluid in the tank at two different levels and extract the fluid density from this information because you will know the vertical distance between the pressure taps, and the difference in pressure over a known distance is a direct measure of density. but it is highly unusual to install pressure/level transmitters in this way. There is no pressure transmitter (HART or otherwise) that is enabled to measure liquid density without a second pressure tap in the liquid level, and that only works with non-pressurized (atmospheric) storage tanks.

HART differential pressure transmitters can use two different pressure taps to provide density data, and one of the pressures can be also used for tank level. If your customer has differential pressure transmitters, and atmospheric storage tanks, then a second pressure tap can be installed to collect density information. The PLC or remote I/O can access the primary (level) indication and if the I/O is HART enabled, can access the secondary data point. Both data can be supplied to Ignition via use of its OPC server software. Ignition has OPC client software.

>I have a customer that has about 15 to 30 level sensors on
>tanks. The customer asked how he could leverage the sensors
>beyond their pressure reading. Because, when he bought the
>sensors, he knew they could also read the density of the
>fluid as well. Each sensor is HART enabled and the customer
>wants to integrate it into their Ignition SCADA. Any
>suggestions on getting HART sensor data into Ignition?
 
Once data is available in Modbus, it is available via OPC.

Ignition is an OPC Client and either uses an integrated OPC server or a 'freestanding' OPC server that's been installed and configured.

Any commercial OPC server can be equipped with a driver to fetch data from a Modbus device.

Path: HART > Modbus > OPC server > OPC Client

Look at Moore Industries HCS HART-to-Modbus data concentrator to get HART data into a Modbus slave

http://www.miinet.com/InterfaceSolutionDownloadCenter/Products.aspx?product=176
 
i agree with david_2. the Moore industries has a nice hart to Modbus product. also prosoft has several models.

good luck

>Look at Moore Industries HCS HART-to-Modbus data concentrator to get
> HART data into a Modbus slave
 
You will likely want to read CMD 3 data from your HART device. You could use one of our HART to Modbus converters. Like in the previous post, once you convert your data to Modbus, you can read the data into your SCADA software. Modbus is by far the most common protocol and should be easily read in by your SCADA software.

We have 2 versions depending on how you want to connect to your PC.

For Modbus RTU (via RS-232 or RS-485) to Hart conversion, you can use our HRT-710.

http://www.icpdas-usa.com/hart_710.html

For Modbus TCP (via Ethernet) to Hart conversion, you can use our HRT-711.

http://www.icpdas-usa.com/hrt_711.html
 
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