Load sharing power supply adds reliability

Product Exclusive: Dataforth’s MAQ20 Industrial Data Acquisition & Control System offers an accessory Load Share Power Supply Module to ensure users’ power supply requirements are met. The MAQ20 system has DIN rail mounted, programmable, multi-channel, signal conditioning input and output modules and communications modules. System power is connected to the communications module and powers the I/O modules.

July 16, 2014

Dataforth’s MAQ20 Industrial Data Acquisition & Control System offers an accessory Load Share Power Supply Module to ensure users’ power supply requirements are met.

The MAQ20 system is made up of DIN rail mounted, programmable, multi-channel, signal conditioning input and output modules and communications modules. System power is connected to the Communications module, which in turn powers the I/O modules.

The Communications modules provide 5 V dc at up to 3A through the system backbone, which is more than adequate for most typical systems (standard input modules consume 150 mW). However, some MAQ20 I/O models deliver significant amounts of power to field I/O devices, and when many of these are used in one system, power supply requirements may exceed the power output of the Communications module. To meet these high power consumption needs, one or more MAQ20 Load Share Power Supply modules (MAQ20-PWR3) can be installed in any I/O module slot on one backbone to provide the additional power needed. 

Advanced circuitry advantages

"The Load Share Power Supply module offers significant system advantages compared to the competition," said John Lehman, Dataforth engineering manager. "First of all, it contains advanced circuitry that actively shares the I/O module load requirement equally with the MAQ20 Communications module and other Load Share Power Supply modules. Second, we built reverse power, overload, and transient absorption circuitry into both the Load Share Power Supply and Communications modules to ensure the system is protected under fault conditions. In addition, it’s a hot-swappable module."

While its primary function is to supply extra power to a system in which the I/O modules demand more power than the communications module can provide, the Load Share Power Supply module also can be used to provide redundant power for loads under 3 A (15 W), enhancing system reliability.

Backbones for the MAQ20 system mount within a 35 x 7.5 mm standard DIN rail and distribute power and communications. Each of the four available backbone models accommodates one Communications module and a set number of I/O modules, from 4 to 24.

Dataforth

www.dataforth.com 

– Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager, CFE Media, Control Engineering, mhoske@cfemedia.com.

ONLINE extra

This is a Product Exclusive announcement in the Control Engineering North American July 2014 print and digital editions. For more products, see

www.controleng.com/products

ONLINE extra 

Dataforth, established in 1984, provides data acquisition and control, signal conditioning, and data communication products for industrial applications, for rugged signal and data integrity and wide spectrum accuracy. Dataforth products are manufactured in the USA and have been RoHS compliant since 2006; the Dataforth Quality Management System is ISO9001:2008 registered, according to the company.