Mix, batch, and dose process controls are more similar than customary technical parlance might suggest, which tends to be terminology specific to an industry segment, often suggesting a series of industry specific problem and solution scenarios.

Familiarity with a particular segment often leads to reliance on conventional wisdom to arrive at the best fit solution; which teaches, what had worked before will work again, and it is typical that such solutions and techniques often require differing hardware implementations.

The 900 Series Intelligent Process Instruments, from Florite International, address a wide range of solutions with instrumentation that requires only minor hardware variations and programming to form a process-specific adaptation.

The 900 Series variants incorporate an integrated platform design, supporting a wide range of universal monitor and control resources; input-output ports, communication and interface protocols for local and remote data collection, local and remote display, and management.

The proprietary M2C2™ operating environment provides the ability to address multiple aspects of plant process control and management with a single instrumentation resource.

An international biochemical product manufacturer selected a proportional-parallel process for mixing three constituent fluids to a tolerance below a percent, supported by real-time mix status monitoring. The scheme depicted in Figure 1 was chosen based on its simplicity and effectiveness, able to increase plant productivity while providing management information to a central computer.

Proportional Mixing requires multiple sets of input-output ports, each set consisting of a sensor (input) and a control valve (output) for each constituent material. The Model 990 Controller was chosen to accomplish the task due to its versatility, offering any combination of up to 6 universal input and output ports. For processes requiring more constituents - additional 990 units are readily daisy-chained to accomplish the expansion.

A major integrated circuit manufacturer selected the process for a batching arrangement provided for an application requiring computer controlled delivery on-demand of precision chemical quantities used to manufacturer integrated circuits. Batching entails delivery of a single constituent requiring only a single set of input-output ports to perform the necessary sensing and control functions.

A dosing solution depicted in Figure 3 was arranged for a large bulk glass manufacturer, requiring precision amounts of lubricating oil to be injected into a base coolant fluid during the manufacturing process. This application achieved customer programmable net aggregate mix ratios from 1:1 up to 1:9,999 ml/ml. Dosing is a demanding process control application. The dose constituent is typically injected into a very large base constituent in extremely small precise amounts. The dose technique requires intensive real-time processing, analysis, and feed-forward adjustment in order to accomplish accurate mix consistencies. This application was economically accomplished using a 2-port Model N920.

The Florite M2C2™ operating environment provides the ability to implement a single control and communications protocol across a multiplicity of plant process monitors and controllers. Utilizing a consistent, open communications and programming structure facilitates installation, application interface software, inventory, and maintenance.

All instrument models provide LCD menu-driven operation, local keypad programming, in addition to full computer operation; locally using the standard RS232 port, and LAN port offering either RS485 or Ethernet; and remotely using an internal WAN communication port.

The flexibility to address a variety of mixed analog and digital sensor inputs, and to output analog, digital, or relay actuation, suggests the ability to instrument virtually any plant monitor and control application.

Dual on-board totalizers and rate meters provide additional monitor and control functionality. This data is retained in non-volatile memory. Programmed reporting of accumulated data or alarm conditions can be communicated to remote host computers or annunciated locally, both visually and audibly. Input and output signals are fully scaleable, with inputs filtered to smooth erratic rates from affecting reliability and consistent performance.

An integrated real time clock-calendar supports event recording, programmed management reporting, scheduled maintenance, and customer service activities such as automated billing.