As energy costs rise, it is important to optimize and monitor the consumption of your production equipment. Compressed air is one of the most cost-intensive energy sources for many manufacturing companies, but according to various studies, many manufacturers still waste about 30% of the compressed air they generate, so monitoring energy consumption and flow to detect leakages has great potential for cost savings.
Typical sources of leaks are damaged lines, hoses, connections, valves, and screw or flange connections. Even the smallest leaks in a compressed air system can be costly. One 3 mm hole in the system can cost up to 5000 EUR per year in electricity costs alone. In turn, pressure fluctuations threaten production efficiency and product quality. If the air is not supplied at the optimum pressure, the tools, cylinders, and vacuum suckers will lose their strength and will not work properly. Often the pressure drop in the system is compensated by an increase in the compressor load, which significantly increases the total energy consumption and can lead to unplanned maintenance work and long equipment downtime in the long run.
The SICK FTMg compressed air flow meter can simultaneously measure flow, pressure, and temperature, as well as calculate and output up to eight process parameters: flow speed, flow volume, cumulative volume, mass flow, cumulative mass, energy consumption, current pressure and temperature.
The SICK FTMg flow sensor has high measurement dynamics, which allows detecting even low-pressure losses. In addition, internal data logging over seven days and integrated static evaluation help to detect even the smallest leaks in the pneumatic system.
All measurement data can be transferred to the PLC via digital or analog signals as well as IO-Link communication. But the Ethernet PoE version also provides a simple web-server connection to a computer or cloud to make power consumption more transparent.
FTMg technical specification:
Industrial version: power supply 17… 30VDC, (1x analog output + 1x digital output + 1x configurable output), IO-link communication.
Ethernet version: power over Power over Ethernet (PoE), TCP / IP, OPC UA, MQTT, integrated web-server.
OLED color display provides clear:
Web-server - (Ethernet version only) and IO-Link communication (industrial version only) for easy system integration and remote data access.
In addition to compressed air (pneumatic air), other non-corrosive gases Ar, He, CO2, N2 (i.e. argon, helium, carbon dioxide and nitrogen) can also be measured.
