Transmitters pt 1

In Episode 9, Sean talks to Tony Farah, Product Manager for Transmitters and Level at Yokogawa Australia and New Zealand.  Is it true that 4-20 mA HART will be phased out in the near future? Is a transducer equal to a transmitter? Tune in to hear the debunking of these myths.

Transcript

[00:06] - Sean 
This is a Yokogawa Australia and New Zealand podcast. Welcome back to Yokogawa Debunks, conversations with industry experts to demystify misconceptions we hear in process instrumentation and process automation. I'm your host, Sean Cahill, and thank you for joining us today. In today's episode, we'll talk about the misconceptions surrounding pressure transmitters. With us today, we've got Tony Farah, who's product manager for transmitters at Yokogawa Australia and New Zealand. Now, Tony has a wealth of experience in instrumentation, and it's going to help us today to debunk a few of the misconceptions around this episode and future episodes. So, good morning, Tony. Pleasure to have you on the podcast. 

 [00:50] - Tony 
Thank you, Sean. Good to speak to you again. 

 [00:53] - Sean 
Good to have you on the podcast and welcome. Look, let's start. Tony before we delve into the myths related to transmitters. Look, if you could give us a little bit of a bit about your background and experience at Yokogawa. 

 [01:06] - Tony 
Thank you, Sean. Yeah, I've been associated with Yokogawa for just over 30 years now. And in my travels, I've been really very fortunate in that I've been exposed to many industries ranging from food and beverage, pulp and paper, mining, chemical, petrochemical. And so, I've really had a really great career out in the instrumentation field, which has really been fantastic. 

[01:29] - Sean 
That's great, Tony. So, look, I mean, being exposed to all these industries, you've you've probably heard people say some rather strange and unfathomable things about instrumentation, you know, making odd statements here and there. You know, I certainly heard a few myself. And and these are a few of the things that I wanted to discuss with you. And one of the first ones I would like to talk about is relating to communications. So is there any truth that the 4 to 20 mA HART protocol is going to die soon and that industries are soon going to replace this protocol with 2-wire Ethernet, for example? What can you tell us about that? 

 [02:02] - Tony 
That's an interesting statement you make there, Sean. I think that quite often people who have been exposed to the simplicity of current technologies have been exposed to little more, say when we look at the computer technologies, there is fresh blood coming into the system. So often people look at it and work with what they're comfortable with, and that's really where it's at. However, when we look at technology like Ethernet that cater for certain segments of the industry, that's a bit challenging in some of the situations that we find ourselves in where people are a lot more comfortable with 4 to 20 mA HART that can transmit signals anywhere up to 10000 feet, roughly three kilometres. 

 [02:51] - Tony 
Whereas when you look at some of the newer technologies like Ethernet, you're looking at somewhere around 200 meters and in some cases only 100 meters, and in particular in the mining and petrochemical industries, this is one of the challenges that they have with transmitting signals over long distances. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges with a protocol such as Ethernet. 

 [03:16] - Sean 
That sounds good Tony, look, I mean, that's really good to know your opinion on this topic, because we do see a lot of misleading information and a lot of this that is put out on the on the Internet, people can very easily get taken on the wrong track. Now, there seems to be a push in the industry to utilize Ethernet in general. And certainly on some of these instruments, you could see it'd be a real benefit to bring a lot of information back to plant control system or a maintenance system quite easily using this technology. 

But with pressure and temperature transmitters. Do you think there will be any real advantages to Ethernet and that it could offer over 4-20 mA and HART? 

 [03:53] - Tony 
Well, absolutely. You know, in the technology of Ethernet, there's a lot of data that's available. However, the question then that comes up in my mind is how much of the data we actually going to use. So if you look at the HART protocol and there's a significant amount of diagnostics within the devices and again, most instances there’s only really the primary parameters that are utilized. So when you have a lot of data, it's a question of how much of the data you want to use and where you want to go to with it. 

 [04:25] - Tony 
If I just touch briefly on technologies such as Foundation Fields that has been around for more than 25 years in most of the applications globally, they're using the primary parameters, which has been a bit of a shame that the technology was developed where you can have anything up to 500 parameters built into a device and that the user would only use maybe two or three of the primary parameters. So I guess Ethernet will probably find its place. And it's a case of horses for courses. 

 [04:59] - Sean 
OK, thanks, Tony. Look, I mean, I think that sort of helps us with that particular topic. So let's move on to to a second myth that's out there. And that one is around whether there's any truth to the statement that a pressure transducer is just as good as a pressure transmitter. What do you think on that one? 

 [05:18] - Tony 
You seem to come up with some really very interesting observations. So when we look at it, you know, the pressure transducer is a really simplistic pressure measuring device. And in most instances, pressure transducers have very limited amount of information. So when we consider where we typically use some of these pressure transducers. It would be somewhere in areas where it might be non-critical applications. And the measurement is purely for a primary parameter, such as pressure. However, when we look at more critical applications, we need to really look at the right technology for the right application and not necessarily go for cheap as a pressure transducer would fall into that type of category. 

 [06:03] - Tony 
So, again, really looking at what suits your application and choosing and selecting whether you want something that's more sophisticated or something that's more simplistic. 

 [06:14] - Sean 
So these are really interesting points Tony. And I think you you know, you're right to identify that in a time where there's a lot of pressure on plant operations and maintenance personnel to reduce costs. It's easy to be seduced by a cheap sensor that you can think can do the job. But the reality is, is, you know, you need to actually see whether it's fit for purpose and whether it's got the durability that industrial processes require. So there's a really, really valuable points there. You've got to pick the right technology for the right application. 

 [06:46] - Tony 
Absolutely, Sean. I think you hit the nail on the head and it's very much a case of where you need to know what type of technology is suited to your application to make the correct decision such that you have reliable information of the application that you are monitoring for pressure or temperature, for that matter. 

 [07:05] - Sean 
Thanks, Tony. I look, there's so much more that we could we could go through here, but I think we're going to have to wind up for today. So, Tony, thank you very much for your time today. 

 [07:15] - Tony 
Thank you, Sean. And I look forward to talking to you soon. 

 [07:18] - Sean 
Thank you all very much for joining us today. And please join us again for part two of this series of Yokogawa debunks around pressure and temperature transmitters where Tony will continue busting myths with us. Thank you very much for listening. Goodbye.