DUX HOT WATER Upgrades R&D Testing Facility Using NI FieldPoint and the LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module

Author(s):
Murad Abdelmaseih - DUX Hot Water

Industry:
Water/Wastewater, Energy/Power

Products:
Compact FieldPoint, LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module, LabVIEW, FieldPoint

The Challenge:
Transforming the DUX HOT WATER R&D testing facility with an automated, modular, flexible, and expandable system to increase the testing capacity without increasing human resources.

The Solution:
Combining National Instruments FieldPoint I/O system with the LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module to create a modular system with the flexibility to monitor a large variety of sensors, control different types of actuators, and log data continuously.

Increasing Testing Without Increasing Staff
In the last few years, we have increased market share and expanded the range of electric and gas water heaters. This expansion requires an ever-expanding research and development program, leading to a significant rise in the amount of lab testing. In addition to research and development testing, we use the lab for routine quality control testing.

To cope with the increasing testing responsibilities without adding more staff, the research and development department needed to implement a modern testing laboratory. This new facility provided DUX the state-of-the-art technical capability it needed to maintain itself as an industry leader.

Rapid Life Cycle Testing
We previously conducted testing manually. Most tests run for several hours while others need days of monitoring. This proved costly, slow, and cumbersome. The limited data logging capability of the test equipment required us to manually log data in most cases, resulting in increased human error. Test equipment and space were not easily interchangeable between tests because of the substantial amount of time required to change the equipment setup.

We needed to run rapid life cycle testing outdoors for several months at a time, making it almost impossible to do this manually. We needed to outsource some testing to external laboratories during the development and approval process. With the former system, the R&D lab could not perform any testing for routine quality control purposes during periods of product development.

We needed to develop an easy-to-use, robust, flexible system that could adapt to future testing needs, and supply an automated solution. The system needed to monitor a number of different inputs, including digital switches, analog inputs, counter inputs, and thermocouples, to control differing digital and analogue actuators as well as continuously log data.

National Instruments FieldPoint system presented a modular solution that we could easily configure and reconfigure. The system consists of a range of specialized I/O modules. In this installation, we hard wired the I/O modules to either fixed sensors (or actuators) or to fixed sockets. Using the sockets, we could connect and disconnect sensors (or actuators), without the need for rewiring.

We can connect up to nine I/O modules to a FieldPoint network module using a bus connection. The network module links to a PC using a serial interface (RS-485 or RS-232 in this case), which did not require additional hardware. We selected the Windows NT operating system for the lab for its reliability.

Because we can interchange the I/O modules, we benefit from the flexibility of changing the number of each type of modules to suit the needs of the lab. We can also piggyback FieldPoint I/O Network modules using RS-485 cable to connect more I/O modules to easily expand the system.

To complement this system, we used the National Instruments LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module. This module provided an easy-to-use graphic programming platform with a logging engine. We selected LabVIEW for various programming purposes. FieldPoint I/O channels are read using the LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module tags configured to convert raw data into actual measurements (including error correction). We can configure several tags to read the same channel because we configure different tags for the different types of sensors or actuators for each tag, we can interchange instruments plugged to each channel without reconfiguring the system. Adding to this feature, the plug and play capability of the FieldPoint modules allows the system to continue running with no downtime between tests.

The LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module automation programming has proven to be an easy means to speed up testing and greatly reduce the labor hours. Tests that required several days of human monitoring now require very little setup time and no manual monitoring. We can also use the system to run tests over weekends and holidays, further minimizing the need for resources while maximizing productivity. The automation of the facility was particularly useful in the area of rapid life testing, where we continuously run tests outdoors for months at a time. Life cycle testing now requires virtually no monitoring, and logged data is readily available at any time.
The LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module acts as a server for other computers facilitates monitoring and provides data access to all members of the R&D team on their own PCs, eliminating the need to occupy the lab computer. Additionally, the automated lab reduced human errors in test results.

Reduction of Costs
The new testing facility has proven worth the effort, time, and money invested. We achieved savings and gains on several fronts:

• We have dramatically reduced the cost of testing new water heaters and the human resources required
• We minimized the amount of expensive and time-consuming testing conducted at external laboratories
• More importantly, we have reduced the time required to design and test a new product while improving product testing — a crucial factor for the company’s product development plans
• The testing facility now also has the means to accommodate most routine and process control testing required for the manufacturing plant
• Our ability to do most new product development and research testing in-house yields obvious benefits in regard to maintaining our intellectual property
• The ease of conducting and switching between different tests without any downtime or reconfiguration of the system is one of the most important benefits of the system
• The ability to add and configure new modules and tags with very little downtime in the lab is another impressive feature of this combination of National Instruments products

Future Plans
The testing facility is currently undergoing further upgrades to cater for even more testing. We plan to involve the addition of more FieldPoint networks and I/O modules, and this expansion will not require the lab to stop work for more than a few hours.

For more information, contact:
Murad Abdelmaseih
Collins Road, Moss Vale
NSW 2577 Australia
Tel: (02) 4868 0226
Fax: (02) 4898 0279
E-Mail: mabdelmaseih@dux.com.au

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