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The broadcast is now starting.

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All attendees are in listen only mode.

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Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining us on our call today.

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My name is Nicole Daniel Quincy

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from Trans Chat and I'll be your moderator this afternoon.

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Our webinar topic is testing

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and troubleshooting four to 20 million control loops.

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The topic is presented by Jim Shields from Flute Corporation,

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manager for the Process Calibration Group for Food Corporation.

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He is in the Issa and has actively

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supported and developed instrumentation curriculum throughout his career.

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James worked in the field of calibration
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and Metrology field and bench for over 40 years.

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You can expect the presentation today

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to last roughly 30 minutes and then we'll open it up for questions and answers.

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Any time of the presentation, you can send questions through

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the question box to the right in your webinar control.

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I also want to mention that the webinar is being recorded.

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You will each receive a follow up email

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with a link to the recorded webinar and the slides of today's presentation.

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I want to turn the presentation over to Jim.

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Thank you, Nicole.

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Welcome, everyone.

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Today's topic, as Nicole mentioned,

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testing and troubleshooting four to 20 million control loops.

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Let's get started.

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So we're going to cover what makes a four to 20 milliamp control

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loop tick, things that can go wrong with four to 20

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milliamp control loops and an in depth discussion on how do you

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troubleshoot and what tools give you the answer.

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They are the most useful.

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Measuring milliamp signals, interpreting the measurements.

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We're going to discuss multiple

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measurement methods, testing the inputs and outputs of control

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systems, PLCs DCs and indicators with milliamps signal sources,
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and multiple methods and sourcing approaches will be addressed.

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As well as testing one to five volt DC and zero to ten volt DCIO.

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We're going to cover measuring loop power supplies, troubleshooting suspected power

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supplies that are defective, testing and Isolating transmitter using

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substitution power supply testing troubleshooting suspect transmitters

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using milliamp simulate as a substitution method.

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We're going to cover using a heart smart transmitter as a milliamp signal source,

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something often overlooked and functionality built into hard smart

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devices, testing an IDP using a four to 20 milliamp signal source and testing

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a control valve with a four to 20 milliamp source.

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So if we take a look at what makes

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a loop tick, we've got a variety of devices in the loop.
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A loop is a fairly consistent element in process control.

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There's typically always going to be a 24 volts power supply, a transmitter,

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of course, the signal wires to make the connection and the input to a control

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system that's going to interpret the milliamp signal.

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Most often that input to the control

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system is going to be some value of resistance that converts the four to 20

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milliamps signal to a one to five volt or zero to ten volt DC signal

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that the controller or the control system then will decode into the actual value.

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The milliamp signal represents a process value on the input to the transmitter.

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That input can be a variety of different process parameters.

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Temperature, pressure, flow, and PH are a number of common ones.

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Virtually any process variable that can be measured and needs to be understood

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by the control system can be converted by various types of transmitters.

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We refer to this as a two way transmitter

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because it is powered by the 24 volts power supply and does not have an external

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connection to 120 or 240 volts to get its power.

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The indicator controller, as I mentioned, interprets the milliamp signal.

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It's scaled down the range of the transmitter and interpreting

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the milliamp signal knows what the transmitter is actually measuring

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based on its programming and configuration.

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So the PV is the primary variable, sometimes referred to as the process

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variable, and the example shown here, the process variable is pressure.

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So there's pressure developed within the process vessel,
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and that pressure needs to be sensed by a pressure transmitter.

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In this case, the temperature transmitter.

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Now that's highlighted has a temperature

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sensor that goes into the process and measures temperature.

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Thetransmitter.

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The most common types of sensors used are

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either thermocouples or RTDs, and they convert the low level nonlinear

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signal from the temperature sensor into a four to 20 milliamp signal.

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The transmitter in our example has a range of zero to 300 degrees C.

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The relationship of the measured

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temperature in milliamp is shown in the table at right

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and a little bit easier to read in this example table here, you'll notice that as
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the temperature increases by the sensor and interpreted

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by the transmitter as that temperature increases, the milliamp signal increases.

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So, by interpreting the milliamp signal

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and knowing the range of the transmitter, you can approximate about what temperature

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the transmitter is seeing as it's measuring the temperature in the process.

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How accurately that relationship is

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between temperature and milliamps is a function of the accuracy

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of the calibration of the temperature transmitter itself.

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The controller interprets the four to 20 milliamp signal.

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As I mentioned,

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it may have a 250 LM resistor on its input that converts that milliamp

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signal into a one to five or a zero to ten volt DC signal.

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That controller is programmed with the range of the transmitter.

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So as the million amp signal changes, the temperature controller or the input

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card to the control system is programmed to understand the relationship between

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milliamps and temperature and then allows the controller to make decisions based

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on the temperature that's related to the milliamps signal.

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It can open up a control valve, for example, in this example,

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applying more gas to a burner to heat the temperature up.

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Of course, as the temperature goes up, the milliamp signal goes up.

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The temperature control will recognize if the temperature is at or near a set point.

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It can then open and close the control

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valve that applies the heat to the process fluid in the vessel to keep the process
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value for the temperature within allowable limits.

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The input output of the control system is

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typically going to have a 100 to 250 LM resistor on its input.

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Sometimes in a broken loop.

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Those input output cards can have fuses that will blow.

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So if you have a dead loop you might check the input car to your control system.

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There's a few other culprits that we'll talk about in a moment.

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So in the example with a pressure transmitter that I started to talk about

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a little bit earlier, pressure is the measured PV,

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or primary variable that's being measured by the pressure transmitter.

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There's a direct connection between the

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process vessel and the input to the transmitter.
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In a process vessel, the pressure is equal throughout the head space of the vessel.

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So the pressure then that is being sent

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by the transmitter itself is based on its location adjacent to the vessel.

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The pressure then being sent

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by the transmitter is the same pressure that's actually inside the vessel itself

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via a capillary or some other form of piping or plumbing.

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Our transmitter in this example has a range of zero to 100 PSI.

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So the transmitter is in perfect adjustment and it's measuring zero PSI.

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The milliamps signal being regulated

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by the transmitter should be about four milliamps.

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As the pressure increases from zero to 100 PSI, you'll see that milliamps signal

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increase from four to 20 milliamps depending on the actual pressure that's

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being sent on the input of the transmitter.

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The indicator controller decodes the four to 20 milliamp signal.

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As mentioned, same thing with temperature,

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there's a resistance that develops a voltage drop as the four to 20 million

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signal changes and the controller interprets that voltage via the D

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and the programming that the controller has based on the range of the transmitter

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to allow it to understand what the actual pressure is then in the vessel and then

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based on a set point in this example, the controller can then close the control

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valve to let pressure out of the vessel or close the relief valve if the pressure is

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too low to allow the pressure to build to the appropriate pressure value

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so things that can go wrong with 40 million control loops.
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There's only a finite number of elements, but sometimes it can be interesting to try

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to troubleshoot and identify which element is causing a problem.

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One culprit that's quite common is wiring problems.

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Most process applications.