Flow Control Dampening Setup Guide

COMMANDbatch V1.03 & Later

Last Updated 12/27/16

www.commandalkon.com
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 Contents

Contents ........................................................................................ 3

Introduction .................................................................................. 4
Purpose ................................................................................................ 4
Audience ............................................................................................... 4
Revision Summary ................................................................................. 4

Flow Control Dampening ................................................................ 5

Flow Control Dampening Setup ................................................................ 5
Flow Control Dampening Logging .............................................................. 7

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 Introduction

Topics in This Section

Purpose
Audience
Revision Summary

Purpose
This document explains how COMMANDbatch dampens material flow rates to
allow more precise feed cutoff calculations and drop determinations.

Audience
This guide is intended to be used by Command Alkon installation and service
personnel, as well as plant personnel specifically authorized to install and
configure COMMANDbatch.

Revision Summary

CMDbatch
Date Version Revision
Feb. 28, 2005 First draft.
Mar. 3, 2005 Minor revisions per QA review. Published the manual.
Oct. 6, 2005 1.04 Fixed a table problem (one table on top of another).
Mar. 8, 2007 1.06 Improved Notes, Tips, Cautions, and Warnings with
better icons and formatting.
Aug. 17, 2009 1.7.8.0 Added a cross-reference to the Discharge Diagnostics
manual for monitoring scale flow rates.
Aug. 30, 2012 1.8.4.5 Updated the manual for 1.8.4.5.
Oct. 11, 2012 1.8.6.0 Described the updated/new Dampening Types.
Nov. 27, 2012 1.8.6.0 Minor rewording of feature description.
Jul. 21, 2015 1.9.0.0 Updated cover/title page.
Dec. 27, 2016 2017.1.0 Updated cover/title page.

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 Flow Control Dampening

This feature allows scale flow rates to be dampened to allow more precise
feed cutoff calculations and drop determinations.
To enable this feature, the “Allow Flow Control” option on the Scales form
must be checked and a value from 0.01 to 0.99 entered in the Dampening
Factor field of the Calibrations form.

Notes: • The Dampening Factor defaults to 0.0 on upgraded systems so

they can function as they did in the past without Dampening.
• If the Scales form is opened and saved without changes to the
Dampening Factor, its value defaults to 1.0 and allows the
system to function without Dampening.

Topics
Flow Control Dampening Setup
Flow Control Dampening Logging

See Also:
Disch_Diag.pdf

Flow Control Dampening Setup

1. For each scale that uses Flow Control, check the “Allow Flow
Control” box on the Flow tab of the Scales form.
Scales form with Flow Control enabled

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 2. On the Calibrations form, enter a Dampening Factor for the scale.
Allowable values must be in the range, 0.01 to 0.99.

Note: A Dampening Factor of 0.1 is recommended.

3. Select one of the following Dampening Types.

Flow
This is the default and refers to the discharge flow rate. Flow Dampening is the default
mode and refers to the Rate-of-Change of the material to be flow controlled.

Base Actual
Refers to the scale reading that is derived as new scale values are read from the scale
unit at the analog update rate, using the Dampening Factor.

Average Actual
Refers to the scale reading that is derived as new scale values are read from the scale
unit at the analog update rate, using the Dampening Factor and an average over a
number of samples.
Calibrations form with Dampening Factor for Agg Scale

4. Save your changes. The following message appears.

Restart RTC message

5. Click “Restart Now” to reboot the RTC.

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 Flow Control Dampening Logging
To allow analysis of the effects of dampening, a service feature is provided
that enables flow information to be logged to a file. The user must have
access to a # prompt console on the COMMANDbatch RTC.

To enable flow control logging:

Enter the following command at the root # prompt on the RTC.
FlowLog <Unit Number> <Device Name> <On:Off> [<mm>]
Where:
Unit Number is an Interface Parameter Unit Number.
Device Name must be a quoted Device Name with Flow Control
enabled.
On:Off must be either “On” or “Off” to Enable or Disable Flow
Logging.
mm is optional and defines the number of minutes to leave
the FlowLog file open. If no time is specified, the
default is 15 minutes.

Example: FlowLog 1 “Agg Scale” On

Each time flow control logging is enabled, a new file is created in the /usr/ftp
directory on the RTC. The file is named as follows:
Flow_Log_MMDDYYYYHHMM.csv
Where:
MM represents the Month
DD represents the Day
(example: ‘12’ for the 12th day)
YYYY represents the Year
HH represents the Hour in 24-hour format
(example: ‘18’ for 6:00 pm)
MM represents the Minute

To conserve disk space on the RTC, logging, once enabled, will automatically
disable after 15 minutes. In addition, WARNING messages will be included in
the RTC’s Trace Logging data requesting that these files be deleted. If the files
are not deleted within 3 days, the normal RTC reboot will remove them.

Using the Flow Control Log:

Information sent to the flow control log includes:
• Device Name
• Actual Scale Value

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 • Dampened Scale Value
• Raw Flow
• Dampened Flow
• Averaged Flow
This information can be exported to a Microsoft Excel file and inserted into a
chart. The following example shows the Raw, Averaged, and Dampened
values when a Dampening Factor of 0.1 was used.
Flow Rate with 0.1 Dampening Factor

Color Legend:
Dark Blue = Raw
Purple =
Dampened
Yellow =
Averaged
In this graph, the
Averaged Flow
has been
dampened.

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