Bill Lydon, who has worked for just about everybody, and I had time for a five minute chat at National Manufacturing Week last month. He told me that a new company he’s seen up in Menomonee Falls, WI had put together some very interesting designs for pH ORP, Conductivity, Toroidal, Resistivity, and so on. I was skeptical until I heard that the President of the company, AquaSensors LLC, was none other than Bruce Bathurst, one of the geniuses behind Great Lakes Instruments (GLI) before they were sold to Danaher and merged with Hach Chemical Co.
So I went to see them today. Under the premise that a picture is worth a thousand words, this is what they do:
What’s different about the DataStick is that the signal from the sensor cell is digitized immediately, and sent, along with information tags, directly out on the fieldbus of choice, in a completely plug-and-play configuration. Calibration is digital, and you can access the DataStick directly from a PLC, a SCADA system, or even a DCS web interface. This is unique, patented (according to Bathurst) and certainly a long time coming. Its utility for skid builders, DCS and other system integrators is clear: you need half as much instrumentation to make this work, and it works longer, more accurately, and with less maintenance than a conventional parametric process analyzer can.
This made my day, to see that once again I’ve been proven correct. The consolidation in the automation market is driving, not restricting, innovation. Bathurst and company would certainly not have done this, or not done it as fast, if GLI hadn’t given them “a new lease on life.”
This is a neat and original product. Bruce Bathurst and I will be talking about it in the next CONTROL podcast, scheduled for later this week. Check ControlGlobal.com to see if it is posted, and I’ll be posting that information here.
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