Bad Transmitters

What is the best way to identify all the bad transmitters when the plant is down?

  • I would recommend using AMS Device Manager and set Device Alerts for all your devices. Use the alerts as a way to identifying possible bad devices in your plant.
  • Hi,
    Hope you all Safe & doing Great!
    In my opinion OR I would suggest that set the alerts in AMS Device Manager as Device Communication Failure Alert OR advised to check for the values of the wired inputs to the said function blocks OR set alerts for PV low/Bad OR set alerts for PV Out of Limit so that tx failure can be identified.
    Hope this solves your query.
    Take Care, Stay Safe
  • In reply to Tushar Gohad:

    Can we setup the above recommendations on AMS device manager for conventional AI signal not HART enabled devices?
  • In reply to kravindranath:

    Not sure about conventional devices.
  • What type of control system do you have and what kind of I/O? Also it can be tricky to detect when plant is down since there is maintenance going on everywhere and some types of transmitters might have empty pipe, dry wet legs, etc causing an out of range condition on the transmitter.
  • In reply to kravindranath:

    AMS Device Manager and other Intelligent Device Management (IDM) software don't deal with pure analog 4-20 mA devices. You need digital communication like HART of fieldbus to get to the intelligence in the device. The analog 4-20 mA signal is only used in the DCS. So to find pure analog devices with trouble you must look in your DCS. Analog devices flag trouble by setting the output <4 mA or >20 mA masquerading an extreme PV so the system sees something is not right. This is often called "burnout", originally used for thermocouples but now used for all kinds of transmitters. Exactly what signal below 4 mA and above 20 mA set depend on the vendor. Some vendors use 3.8 mA and 21 mA, others use 3.6 mA and 22 mA. There are many combinations. The NAMUR NE43 recommendation specially says 3.6 mA and 21 mA, but far from all devices and systems use this. For some devices and systems NE107 is an option, not the default. Also, transmitter signals can go beyond 0-100%. This means a signal <0% or >100% from one type device comes close or exceeds the fault signal of another. NE43 defines 3.8 and 20.5 mA for this, but only some devices and systems support NE43. In short, using analog signals to determine health of devices is very hard. HART is really the way to go.
  • In reply to Jonas Berge:

    Thanks for the detailed explanation.