Page 26: of Marine News Magazine (December 2016)

25 27

VALVE TECHNOLOGY

Valve Commissioning Valve Commissioning and Maintenance with and Maintenance with

Wireless TechnologyWireless Technology

Bluetooth Enabled Discrete Valve Controller Offers

Savings, Safety and Convenience. The Future is Now.

By MarineNews Staff magine being able to walk up to a valve located in a es into one assembly mounted on the valve reduced the cost, tight engine room and be able to communicate with complexity and maintenance associated with the installation.

Iit using your smart phone without having to open its Migration to network (bus) communications signi? - cover and connect any wires. Believe it or not, that day has cantly reduced cost but also introduced more complexity. arrived and it unlocks the ability to conveniently and cost- In particular, commissioning and maintaining networked effectively commission, operate and maintain automated discrete valve controllers require specialized knowledge. In valves in marine applications using commercial off-the- addition, communication equipment such as a handheld shelf equipment that is secure and affordable. calibrator may be required because distributed control sys- tems (DCS) and programmable logic controllers (PLC) provide limited (if any) access to the setup parameters in

In the Beginning

Early valve control systems were comprised of individual the valve controller. Further, the communication equip- devices (such as limit switches and solenoid valves) that were ment is temporarily connected to the valve controller wir- mounted on the valve and individually wired back to a control ing which not only consumes time but can also negatively panel. The large number of long cables required made these affect the safety of the technician – especially when the valve controller is dif? cult to access and/or located in a systems relatively costly to purchase, install and maintain.

hazardous location.

Discrete valve controllers repackaged the individual devic-

December 2016

MN 26

MN Dec16 Layout 18-31.indd 26 MN Dec16 Layout 18-31.indd 26 11/21/2016 11:13:29 AM11/21/2016 11:13:29 AM