The Great State of Ohio may seem a lot closer to Europe this fall thanks to a new European Pavilion at this year's second Sensors Expo, Sept. 14-16. The 1,000-ft² pavilion will feature numerous leading European equipment and systems manufacturers. (For more sensors coverage, see this issue's Product Focus section.
The Great State of Ohio may seem a lot closer to Europe this fall thanks to a new European Pavilion at this year’s second Sensors Expo, Sept. 14-16. The 1,000-ft
The pavilion will be joined at Cleveland’s I-X Convention Center by the second edition of the Best of Sensors Expo Awards, a new event for 1999 that honors the most useful and innovative products at the show with the most potential for significant impact on sensor applications worldwide. Winners will receive their “Best of Sensors Expo Cleveland ’99′” awards at 1 p.m. on Sept. 15 in the Special Events Pavilion on the exhibit floor. The award program debuted at 1999’s first Sensors Expo in Baltimore in May.
Sensors Expo Cleveland expects to attract several thousand engineers and technical professionals to more than 300 exhibitors, four pre-conference short courses, 26 conference seminars in four tracks, six vendor presentations, and Sensors Expo’s first poster session from 10-11:30 a.m. on Sept. 16 in the events pavilion. The Baltimore event attracted 235 exhibiting companies and 2,400 attendees.
Next year’s Sensors Expo is scheduled for May 9-11, 2000.
Sensors Expo technologies
Innovative sensors, sensor-based systems, hardware, software, and other products at Sensors Expo will include:
A new temperature sensor from efector (Exton, Pa.) featuring bench set-up without additional instruments or temperature reference. It also offers flexible mounting, a control unit that can be mounted on the sensor, or remote mounting of the controller with a cable connection to the sensor. The control unit’s microprocessor allows users to establish a temperature setpoint and resetpoint. Its dual output control unit can be used in applications requiring low- and high-temperature signals. A second control unit features a switched output and an analog output. The stainless steel sensor probe is available in 100-, 200-, 300-, and 500-mm lengths, as well as 2- and 5-m cabled versions.
Channel photomultiplier (CPM) products using patent-pending monolithic photon multiplier (MPM) technology from EG&G Optoelectronics (Santa Clara, Calif.). These optical detectors are designed to replace conventional PMTs using a new detector principle. EG&G says CPM lowers dark current to the low pico-amp range—-a more than 100-fold improvement—by eliminating hundreds of elements needed in conventional photomultipliers. CPM’s noise floor reduction increases dynamic range 100 times, while its simplified design delivers added performance stability, reports EG&G. Unlike other photomultiplier technologies that need costly gradient glasses, CPM needs only the entrance window of the desired glass or crystal to cover different spectral ranges. EG&G says this finally allows every photomultiplier in a system to be exactly the same size and use the same post-processing electronics.
Endevco Corp. ‘s (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) Model 7570A piezoresistive, high-shock accelerometer family. Featuring full-scale acceleration from 2,000-200,000 g, the five accelerometers are suited for measuring acceleration levels in industrial and military applications, such as artillery, penetration weapon fusing, and other smart munitions programs, says Endevco. The accelerometers’ patented sensor is micromachined from one silicon chip to form an inertial mass with integral strain gages configured in a four-arm active bridge. The sensors’ small size and construction results in high resonant frequency and flat frequency response to 150 kHz. On-chip balance resistors deliver low zero acceleration offset and minimal temperature sensitivity. They also have high sensitivity of about 200 mV of full-scale reading.
Twelve new plug-in data acquisition devices and strain gage signal conditioning modules from National Instruments (NI, Austin, Tex.) for taking measurements with computers for analysis, display, and networking. These PCI and CompactPCI devices and components integrate seamlessly with application software, such as NI’s LabView and LabWindows/CVI. The data acquisition devices include: PCI-6034E and PCI-6035E, two 16-bit, 200 kS/s plug-in boards; PXI-6025E, a 12-bit, 200 kS/s plug-in module for CompactPCI/PXI computer systems; PCI-6601, which consists of four 32-bit counter timers; PXI-6608, with eight 32-bit counter timers for CompactPCI/PXI systems; PCI-6703, a voltage output device with 16 voltage outputs; and PXI-6704, a voltage and current output device for CompactPCI/PXI with 32 analog outputs.NI will also exhibit its new DAQPad-6070E multifunction I/O device, which the company says is the first data acquisition device for FireWire, the IEEE-1394 serial bus. DAQPad connects directly to Microsoft Windows 98 PCs equipped with a FireWire serial port or PCI-to-1394 adapter. DAQPad includes NI-DAQ driver software and integrates with NI’s LabView, LabWindows/CVI, and ComponentWorks software.
XR440-M Pocket Logger, a 12-bit, four-channel datalogger with more than 25 direct-connect sensors from Pace Scientific Inc. (Charlotte, N.C.). Able to accept a variety of sensors and process signals, XR440-M’s accessory sensors include thermistor probes, pressure sensors, a temperature/relative humidity probe, a light sensor, and split-core ac current sensors. Plug-in modules are available for thermocouples and process signals. These sensors can be mixed and matched with no external power and signal conditioning. XR440-M can store 129,000 readings and run continuously for more than two years on one user-replaceable battery.
Turck Inc. ‘s (Minneapolis, Minn.) Bi50-CP80 embeddable proximity sensors that feature a 50-mm operating distance while encased in steel with an aluminum shield; M18 ultrasonic sensors that have an 18-mm diameter barrel and one transducer that functions as both emitter and receiver; four new MK Series switching amplifiers and intrinsically safe input circuits; and shielded four- and five-pin RKS eurofast cordsets that reduce electromagnetic and radio frequency and interference and six- and eight-pin straight RKC eurofast cordsets.
DC100 data collector from Yokogawa Corp. of America (Newnan, Ga.) includes two models, a portable unit for small-scale data logging and an expandable unit that can handle up to 300 measurement channels. DC100 provides remote historical data retrieval in Microsoft Excel files. Data can be stored in binary or ASCII formats. Four-times data redundancy is provided by built-in RAM (1, 2, or 4 MB) with full file maintenance, a standard floppy drive, optional SCSI devices, and uploads to central PC or LAN/WANs.
Yokogawa is also exhibiting its new DL708E ScopeCorder, which combines oscilloscope and recorder functions and has eight modular input channels.
