Getting the most from the HART handheld device Beamex Business Bridge Customer success story Aroona Alliance, Australia

Calibration World • Summer 2013 he HART Communication Protocol is the leading communication technology for intelligent process measurement and control instrumentation and systems with more than 30 million devices installed worldwide. This year, the Foundation celebrates 20 years of serving the process automation industry. The HART Communications Protocol is an early implementation of Fieldbus, a digital industrial automation protocol. Its most notable advantage is that it can communicate over legacy 4–20 mA analog instrumentation wiring, sharing the pair of wires used by the older system. We...

CEO’s Letter  2 Getting the most from the HART handheld device   4 How to calibrate a 10-50 mA instrument  10 How calibration improves sustainability   16 Customer success story Aroona Alliance strives for high performance in a zero harm environment  20 News 22 The 2nd generation of the MC2-IS launched Minimizing system integration risks with the Beamex Business Bridge New and added features for the Beamex MC6 Beamex website in several languages Beamex in brief  27 Beamex products and services  27 CALIBRATION WORLD – Beamex corporate magazine Published by Beamex Oy Ab, Ristisuonraitti 10, FI-68600...

Getting the most from the HART handheld device Getting the most from the HART handheld device A device like the Beamex MC6 offers the highest functionality and automation for configuration and calibration of wired or wireless HART transmitters. CALIBRATION WORLD SUMMER 2013  www.beamex.com/calibrationworld

www.beamex.com/calibrationworld  CALIBRATION WORLD SUMMER 2013

Getting the most from the HART handheld device HART handheld is an essential tool in plants deploying HART instrumentation. But what is a HART handheld? What are the differences between various handheld brands and what are the practical considerations that should be taken into account when selecting one? Finally, how does one get the most from the HART handheld? The difference between calibration and configuration Before beginning a discussion on HART handhelds, it is important to take a short look into a terminology issue that often causes confusion – that is the meaning of and difference between...

www.beamex.com/calibrationworld  CALIBRATION WORLD SUMMER  2013

Getting the most from the HART handheld device With the Beamex MC6, you can generate/measure the HART transmitter’s input at the same time as the analog or digital output is read. it is important to remember that the loop supply coming from the DCS does not always include the required impedance for the HART communication to work, especially if the control system is made for analog signals. If the handheld operates according to the HART standard specif ication, its communication signal level must not be too low (due to excessively low impedance), as that could be noise instead of a real, reliable...

have a bigger. A touch screen user interface with color display is available in the most modern handhelds, such as in the Beamex MC6. WirelessHART The WirelessHART standard is the latest offer from HART. Although a WirelessHART instrument transmits wirelessly, it does have screw terminals and configuration and calibration is done via the screw terminals. Therefore, a handheld for WirelessH A RT transmitters does not need to be wireless. The handheld must, however, be able to support the HART 7 standard that the WirelessHART uses, and obviously the handheld must have the DD files to support the...

How to calibra  10–50 mA ins  Today, the market consists mostly of 4–20 mA output instruments, but several 10–50 mA instruments still exist. Finding a calibrator that will measure and source the 10–50 mA instruments is a challenge. Beamex has recently introduced a new tool, the Beamex MC6 calibrator and communicator, to help overcome these challenges. CALIBRATION WORLD SUMMER 2013  www.beamex.com/calibrationworld

www.beamex.com/calibrationworld  CALIBRATION WORLD SUMMER  2013

urrent loops: 4–20 mA, 10-50 mA, why not 5–25 mA? That is the question that many engineers asked when standardizing on a milliamp output for instrumentation. Believe it or not, several factors were considered when choosing 4–20 mA, but not before 10–50 mA made its presence in the market. Nowadays, most industries have adopted 4–20 mA as standard; therefore, several meters and calibrators are available to measure or generate a 4–20 mA signal, but what about those 10–50 mA instruments that are still functioning in many plants across the world? Beamex has recently introduced a new tool, the Beamex...

The reasoning behind 4-20 mA But why 4–20 mA? Believe it or not, there is good reasoning behind these numbers. First of all, the lower amperage signals were accepted over the higher amperage signals because lower amps and volts reduce the chance to generate a shock. In the beginning, 0–20 mA was likely considered, but engineers quickly realized the potential danger a 0 mA signal could infer. First, it could mean that the instrument is at the low side, 0%, of its range, but it could also mean that a line to the instrument got cut or removed. It was quickly determined that the low side of the milliamp...

amplifiers in the loop, also used by the popular instrument manufacturer. The 5:1 tradition was used to determine the high side of 50 mA. Plants across the world purchased these 10-50 mA instruments and installed them into their processes. At the time, calibrating these instruments was not difficult since many calibrators were designed to generate 50 mA. When ISA issued standard ISA50 in 1972, plants started replacing their 10-50 mA instruments with the newly standardized 4-20 mA instruments; however, some industries could not adapt to these changes. Forty-one years later, some of these 10-50...