Your Board at Work

Topic from November Board Meeting

What are the recommended power conditioners for DeltaV?

We currently support 3 power conditioners. Two from MTL and one from Emerson.

Why only these three?

We are sensitive to the varying quality of customer installations and the impact this can have on the overall system performance. We have learned from experience that the Fieldbus power supply is one of the most important factors to having a good reliable Fieldbus system. Even if the installation is perfect (wiring and grounding practices), the Fieldbus segment can experience major problems (or even failure) due to the power supply.

We have experienced major issues with power conditioners in the past and will take all precautions to prevent this from happening again.

Our policy is this:

When a new power supply becomes available we will rigorously test this power supply.

If the power supply passes our testing then we will declare that it is approved for use with DeltaV.

Currently, there are three power supplies approved for use with DeltaV.

• MTL 5995 for non-hazardous installations
• MTL 5053 for IS installations
• FRS Power Conditioner for redundant non-incendive Gas group ABCD installations

We have completed testing of the P&F IS power repeater, Relcom redundant power supply, and are planning to test the Hawke IS power supply in early '01 when production units become available.

We have indicated the issues we have found to the vendors and expect to work with them to resolve the issues found with each of the conditioners.

Duncan & Gary Law