Building on decades of instrumentation experience, S. Himmelstein and Company has engineered a range of full featured and powerful single- and dual-channel signal conditioning instruments. With built-in processing and control functions, they can also be configured as powerful production and performance test analyzers.
What Is a Signal Conditioner?
A signal conditioners primary purpose is to convert the signal produced by any given sensor into a more usable form. A variety of sensors are used in industrial applications to measure and/or monitor several different parameters. Each sensor may have unique signal processing requirements, including excitation voltage, signal amplification, filtering, linearization, etc. S. Himmelstein and Company offers flexible signal conditioners that can be easily configured to satisfy the needs of these different sensors.
Once the signal is processed, it can then be re-transmitted in a more universal format, such as ±10 Vdc, 4-20 mA or digital, to other instrumentation. S. Himmelstein and Company signal conditioners will also provide local digital display of the processed signal, and additional functions such as cross channel calculations with math operations, limit checking with alarm notifications, max and min data capture, tare and hold functions, etc.
Read on to learn more about sensor and signal conditioning instruments and what they can do within your facility’s systems.
Understanding Signal Conditioning Equipment
Many measurement sensor output characteristics can be low level dc current or voltage, or frequency signals. Conditioning the low level signals requires amplification, frequency signals are processed with a frequency to voltage converter. These signals can also be affected by electrical noise, such as from variable frequency drives, or mechanical noise caused by vibration. Using 7 pole antialiasing hardware filters, and 4 pole user settable digital filters with 10X oversampling, the signal conditioner will remove these noise components and allow only valid data to pass through.
Strain gage based sensors generally require an excitation voltage for the Wheatstone bridge. Load cells or other direct wired strain gage sensors can operate with either an dc or ac excitation, rotary transformer coupled torque sensors require ac excitation. The signal conditioning instrument will provide these excitation voltages, and then amplify, and in the case of ac excitation – demodulate, the output signals. Signal conditioners will also have functionality to perform a shunt calibration check of the strain gage bridge.
Other Applications for Signal and Sensor Conditioning Instruments
Himmelstein and Company signal conditioners can be configured to interface with virtually any type of measurement sensor, including torque transducers (slip ring and rotary transformer), load cells, pulse output speed pickups and flow meters, LVDT’s, linear and rotary encoders, voltage and current output transducers, and more. The fully conditioned and processed outputs of these signals can then be used for transmittal to data acquisition systems, feedback control of processes and product performance test systems.
Precision Sensor and Signal Conditioning Instruments
We design and build a range of single- and two-channel signal conditioners. These feature clear displays for ease of setup and built-in data acquisition and control functions. Our signal conditioners support an extensive range of measurement devices through features such as:
- Auto-scaled selectable voltage and current analog output
- Serial communications interface
- User-assignable logic I/O
When you need fast and dependable readings, you can rely on signal conditioners from S. Himmelstein and Company. Our highly skilled employees build the best signal conditioners available at their price point and our after-sales service and support is second-to-none.
Contact us today to learn more about transducer signal conditioners.