Power cell tackles difficult motor load sensing

A new high-performance Hall-effect power sensor is designed specifically for motor load control applications where drives may be fitted.

The latest addition to an innovative range of high-performance Hall-effect power sensors designed specifically for motor load control applications where drives may be fitted, has been released by sensing specialist Vydas International.

The Universal Power Cell, manufactured by Load Controls has been designed specifically for precision process monitoring and control.

The product is designed to cope with the most difficult of motor load sensing tasks when other power sensors and motor load controls are unable to function reliably.

The control of many process machines such as grinders, mills, mixers, rollers, pumps, compressors, conveyers etc may be improved dramatically by sensing true power instead of current.

The Universal Power Cell is a novel product that now makes this possible under all operating conditions.

In practice, it doesn't matter however sophisticated the control computer system, its overall performance is very much dependant on the sensors at the front end.

The UPC accurately measures true electrical power drawn on the input to any industrial electric motor and performs exceptionally well in applications on the "output" of variable frequency or inverter drives.

Wave shape is likely to be poor in these circumstances or power factors may be very low (down to 0.1), but is no problem for the Universal Power Cell.

Conventional CT (current transformer) based power sensors are not suitable for such conditions and will, if used, produce gross power errors (and thus load errors) due to limitations in bandwidth and sensitivity.

The UPC is truly universal, and is suitable for any three-phase, single phase AC or DC motors all in one model.

The UPC also does not use CTs (current transformers) or external VTs (voltage transformers) and its full scale range may be adjusted by the user with course and fine pots to accommodate any motor size up to 120kW.

There are many suitable industrial applications but the product is particularly suited to mixer "process endpoint detection" where by measuring the power drawn by stirrer or paddle drives, the UPC is sensitive enough to detect minute viscosity changes on machines ranging from laboratory sizes to large production machines.

Power changes may be used to indicate the start or end of a cycle, viscosity end-point or overload.

Applications include mixture viscosity, tool condition, optimum feed rate, pump or fan flow, beginning or end of processes, detecting obstructions and overloads or loss of load (prime).

The product may be used in a large number of industries, in fact anywhere that electric motors are used such as the food industry, chemical, gas, oil, water treatment, building industries, machine tools and many more.

Installation is simple with no hassle, since users don't need to wrestle with external voltage and current transformers.

This also saves considerably on installation costs.

The sensor has both 4-20mA and 0-10V analogue outputs plus a range of accessories include both analogue and digital power displays and trip units.

A panel mounted power and energy meter is also available for use in processes such as the mixing of rubber, dough and clay which all respond to energy control.

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