Do you monitor temperatures?

A lot of control engineers do, especially in fields like water treatment, refrigeration, thermoforming, refining, food processing, and energy or building management.

There are a variety of temperature sensors on the market—ICTDs, thermocouples, RTDs, thermistors, infrared sensors. Accuracy, cost, wiring complexity, and environmental conditions are some of the factors that determine which one is best for your application.

Topics: Energy management, Process control, Food & beverage, Water & wastewater, Machine builder, optonews, OEM, Integrators, OptoNews 2015-06-17

Seen from space, light from waste flare gas in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota is nearly as bright as all the lights from the city of Chicago. 

That's a lot of energy going up in smoke.

That's a waste of resources, says Pioneer Energy President Dr. Robert Zubrin. 

Topics: Case studies, Videos, Process control, Remote monitoring, optonews, PACs, OptoNews 2015-06-17

Our tech tip this week comes from Philip in the OptoForum, who shared his PAC Control subroutine code for determining the time the sun rises and sets at a specific latitude. 

You could use HTTP requests over the Internet to get this data (discussed earlier in the same thread). But with this OptoScript code you don't need an Internet connection.

Topics: Tips, optonews, PACs, OptoNews 2015-06-17

Get the latest groov View app for iOS and Android operating systems.

New in this release: Support for Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and verification of a valid SSL certificate on the groov Box or groov Server.

Topics: groov, Updates, Machine builder, optonews, OptoNews 2015-06-03

Have you have been waiting for this one?

Now you can create a custom application to read from and write to tags in a PAC Control strategy running on any of our SNAP PAC programmable automation controllers:

• the standalone PAC S-series (shown at right)
• the rack-mounted PAC R-series
• the software-based SoftPAC

That means you can access tags in the strategy like integer, float, and string variables and tables, as well as analog and discrete input and output points. 

Topics: optonews, PACs, New products, Integrators, OptoNews 2015-06-03

Our last OptoNews introduced the new features in groov 3, just released, including:

• Events and notifications, so you can log key events in your system and even send email or text notifications that come right to your phone
• Data simulator tags, so you can try out gadgets or demonstrate groov without having to connect to real equipment

Now see the webinar!

Topics: Webinars, groov, Updates, optonews, OptoNews 2015-06-03

• What if your hard drive fails while you're developing a PAC Control strategy?
• What if you need to update an old strategy built by someone else?
• What if ..?

That's when you're really glad you archived your strategy.

Topics: Tips, optonews, PACs, OptoNews 2015-06-03

groov 3.0 is available now! And here are two reasons to get excited about this easy-to-use tool for building and viewing your own mobile apps for automation:

- First, new features like events, notifications, and built-in simulated tags

- Second, new platform options with lower pricing for simple remote installations and machine builders/OEMs

Topics: groov, Updates, optonews, OptoNews 2015-05-21

Introducing 3 new groov platforms with lower prices for OEMs, machine builders, and simple remote installations, in addition to platforms for more complex monitoring and control:

• groov Solo
• groov Plus
• groov Enterprise

Topics: groov, Updates, optonews, OptoNews 2015-05-21