PMC Expands the VL3000 range to Include SDI-12 Protocol
Published by Jack Hunter – October 6, 2011
Categories: Physical Measurement, Principal News, Sensors
These submersible transmitters are specifically designed for depth and level measurements of groundwater, wastewater, and sea water. Typical applications are wells, dams, irrigation, sewage lift stations, rivers and oceanography. The stainless steel housing will satisfy many applications. Titanium is also ideal in brackish or sea water, or other chemical environments unsuitable for stainless steel. The standard polyurethane vented cable is molded to the transmitter providing the highest integrity waterproof assembly well proven in thousands of installations worldwide. Kevlar is used to avoid any cable elongation when longer lengths up to 5000 feet are required for deep wells.
It should however be noted that when using SDI-12 protocol the cable length can be limited by the number of transmitters on the same line. For example the current SDI-12 specification states that - "the bus is capable of having at least 10 sensors present each with 200 feet of cable on each sensor". We can also confirm that when a single transmitter is used cable lengths of up to 500ft are acceptable. For really long lengths up to 5000ft PMC recommends the VL4500 series with 4-20mA output. FEP cable is available as an alternate for harsh environments. A feature of the VL3004 Series are full scale ranges as low as 20" WC.