Aquametro AMTRON X-50

[Nassar_ee]

Hi,

I have a project where Aquametro BTU calculator AMTRON x-50 is used, about 180 PCS, and AMBUS net 250.

The system installed in 2012 but not commissioned tell this moment, i am trying to start it up, the first issue I faced that AMTRON x-50 doesn't read temp sensors or flow pulses, if you open instant values, Temp is 999C and Flow is 0, despite sensors and flow meter are connected to the calculator..

I thought it hardware issue but it is happening in all 180 calculators

Any one has experience with Aquametro ?

Thanks

 

[3DDave]

I expect the support engineers at Aquametro have some experience.

http://www.aquametro.com/en/942/Support.htm

Edit:

Also I don't see any docs newer than 2006, which means this may be an 11 year old product. I don't see it on the Aquametro site even under their archive. The install doc mentions a battery with a possible 10 year life, depending on storage conditions, so maybe they failed. It's also old enough to have been built during the days of the electrolytic capacitor catastrophe, so check to see if all the capacitors are OK.

The flow pulses are from reed switches, so shorting the terminals should see if there is a meter problem or a sensor problem.

 

[danw2]

A full scale temperature reading indicates a failure to read the sensor. Given that it is a BTU calculator there's a high probability that the sensor is 4 wire RTD. My experience shows that miswired RTDs during installation is more common that correctly wired RTDs. It might be that a 3 wire RTD was installed and the lack of connection on the open 4th terminal creates a fault mode high reading.

The wiring and power sourcing for the flow frequency inputs might warrant a close examination. Whether the common is sinking or sourcing is often an issue.

 

[Nassar_ee]

Hi Guys

The Temp Sensor is PT100, it measures 110 ohm which means it is OK, also flow meter has mechanical counter on it and showing flow around 40K meters, since it installed in 2012 and kept measuring since that time.

AMTRON has battery inside it and also gets power from M-BUS, all 180 calculators where installed in 2012 and kept running on their battery, and all are showing running time of around 40K hours but not a single BTU registered, since Delta T is zero and flow is Zero.

The above excludes the possibility of dead battery since they didn't register and reading from Day 1 and since connecting M-Bus to it should override battery loss.

Also hardware failure is highly not possible because it cannot happen to all 180 AMTRON!!

this leaves us with possible configuration or Firmware update!!

any one faced this issue before?

 

[3DDave]

If they were made with defective capacitors, they could all fail. Dell computer replaced hundreds of thousands of motherboards for capacitor failures that happened within 2 years of making the units. 180 units is not many. Maybe that's the reason the company doesn't have info on them.

Maybe they attached the leads wrong to all of them. I asked if you tried the flowmeter inputs by shorting them at the calculator.

Any updates will have to come from the maker. Is there some reason you refuse to contact them?

 

[danw2]

I know you want to find the guy that has the same instrumentation and has seen the same problem and will blurt out the solution, and there's still some remote possibility that might happen. In the absence of that expert advice, I would observe that your ability to check the resistance of an RTD and get 110 ohms only shows that the RTD is good. It does not say that the connections are correct or that the device was configured properly for RTD input, especially when the device is screaming "off-scale/upscale fault condition" at you.

Nor does a displayed local total on a flow meter mean that its pulse output is either functionally acceptable or wired properly to the receiver.

I have encountered flow meters with a selectable duration output pulse that trips every X volume units, say, every 1 cubic meter. And someone connected this to a BTU meter which expects a flow rate signal (not a flow volume signal), something on the order of 0-2000Hz, not a flow total pulse. The individual who bought the stuff was quite indignant that 'pulse' could be mean two different things in two different contexts. A flow total pulse every cubic meter is very likely to show up as zero flow to an input expecting a frequency input.

You said the instrumentation had been installed previously and only now is being commissioned. All the drudge work involving loop checks is part of commissioning. The number of defective devices involves only illustates the commonality of the problem(s), not root causes.

If this system never ran properly previously, there are any number of issues that can manifest during commissioning.

But it's your gear, so don't bother checking the wiring since you're convinced it's a firmupdate issue.