# Job That Won’t Quit



## gpop (May 14, 2018)

Add a plc with a high speed input at least you will be able to trend it.


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## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

The Command Batch control is a really small SCADA, so an extra PLC in my opinion is just another thing to fiddle with. Truth be told, Badger Meters are about as bulletproof of a transmitter I’ve seen. A lightning strike, or a water blast from a pressurized leak is about the only thing that will kill them. They will run until the impeller wears a hole clean through it where it rides on the impeller shaft, and still try to count. 
For some reason this one decided it wanted to go out on a wildcat strike and cause me trouble.


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## oldsparky52 (Feb 25, 2020)

You connect the meter to some wiring that goes to ... ?

Is this a pulser of some sort (just curious).


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## gpop (May 14, 2018)

tubine spins a plate with magnets hidden under the needle and dials. Sensor counts the pulses and converts it back into a flow or totaliser which is displayed on the head unit. At least that's what i think it is as we hooked them to plc inputs.


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## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

oldsparky52 said:


> You connect the meter to some wiring that goes to ... ?
> 
> Is this a pulser of some sort (just curious).


Yeah Lou, the turbine wheel is in the water flow and it has 4 magnets in it, so every revolution the scaling board gets 4 Hall effect pulses. The scaling board then converts this into a single pulse which is whatever increment you’re counting, gallons, ounces, or I’m sure for the rest of the world, liters. This is displayed on the manual station on Command Batch and also used by the computer while it’s weighing and loading up a batch. 

In water, you’ll set the dials to 0-4-0-0 as an initial setting, then meter the water into a graduated cylinder (barrel) and compare the results. A simple ratio calculation using desired vs actual is used to create the new number on the scaling board. 

The biggest issue with these is wear on the impeller bore causing it to wobble and drag, and broken off impeller blades from water hammer from jogging to temper concrete loads in the truck.


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## Almost Retired (Sep 14, 2021)

460 Delta said:


> I have a job at a plant wrestling with a Badger meter that just won’t give up.
> I’m there working on a different problem when all of a sudden the meter starts counting rapidly all on its own, all without any flow.
> I go get my spare meter head and drop it in, after I figure out how to set the really old, but new unused scaling board which had 4 sets of 4 dip switches marked 1,2,3,4 and you use these in combination to make any number 0-9. Modern scaling boards made in the last 20 years have rotary dials to set 0-9.
> Set it up and it counts fine, well it does for a day then quits when I’m off on Friday to do some volunteer work 3 1/2 hours away. My phone is blowing up from guys freaking out because they are in a big job and now and the meter refuses to count. After some fidgeting with the ground wire, it suddenly starts counting again and they declare victory.
> ...


are you sure you dont have cable or connection issues ?
maybe some induction somewhere ?
or did you actually find a prob that you are certain caused these symptoms?


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## oldsparky52 (Feb 25, 2020)

Almost Retired said:


> are you sure you dont have *cable or connection issues* ?
> maybe some induction somewhere ?
> or did you actually find a prob that you are certain caused these symptoms?


LOL, you beat me to it. That's where I was going when I asked about a few more details.


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## Almost Retired (Sep 14, 2021)

oldsparky52 said:


> LOL, you beat me to it. That's where I was going when I asked about a few more details.


his post does not include enough info to convince me actually found the root cause
but that doesnt mean he didnt either


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## oldsparky52 (Feb 25, 2020)

Almost Retired said:


> his post does not include enough info to convince me actually found the root cause
> but that doesnt mean he didnt either


Yea, at one point it sounded like some wiggling cause it to start working again, which made me think of a connection or cabling issue.


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## Almost Retired (Sep 14, 2021)

oldsparky52 said:


> Yea, at one point it sounded like some wiggling cause it to start working again, which made me think of a connection or cabling issue.


i suspect he meant that as a semi joke about the operator claiming victory
but it is what made me think as well


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## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

Almost Retired said:


> i suspect he meant that as a semi joke about the operator claiming victory
> but it is what made me think as well


Yeah, I was joking about the victory. They were twisting around on the green ground wire in the condulet tee that went to a solenoid valve when it started counting again.

The first meter went rogue when the Hall effect sensor went bad and started firing the scaling board for no reason. It’s rare, but the pickups do go bad. The second had an at least 30 old scaling board in it that has likely been handled to death and maybe zapped by static electric.
The new scaling board, and good pickup SEEM to be the repair. Time will tell though.


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## LGLS (Nov 10, 2007)

460 Delta said:


> Yeah, I was joking about the victory. They were twisting around on the green ground wire in the condulet tee that went to a solenoid valve when it started counting again.
> 
> The first meter went rogue when the Hall effect sensor went bad and started firing the scaling board for no reason. It’s rare, but the pickups do go bad. The second had an at least 30 old scaling board in it that has likely been handled to death and maybe zapped by static electric.
> The new scaling board, and good pickup SEEM to be the repair. Time will tell though.


Just because A happened and then B happened, doesn't mean A caused B. Our traffic signal controllers used to be completely mechanical manufactured anywhere between the 1940 to the 1990s, before they were all replaced with modern ASTC controllers. The originals had to be upgraded and intercepted and a mmall computer NYC DOT designed custom pulse generator which followed specific timed programs binary-based with a unique changable "addressable code" were employed in Manhattan only, and were all interconnect to a standard CATV coaxial intranet system with multiple node amplifiers, were used to do the actual step-advances for the 17-22 circuit 16-segment cams to keep the traffic on the major avenues flowing in a perfectly timed 32 MPH "cascade. typically on a 90 second repeating cycle. 1st step 1 meant main st green and side street walk, then 2 skip, 4th hit becan DW flash, then 2 hits, then 8th hit DW steady and main st. Amber... then 9th hit Main red (now all is red called "clearance." 2 seconds pause to hit 10 which is side st. Green and Main St. walk -then 11 and 12 placeholders, 13 is Dw flash, 14 is placeholder 15 is DW steady and side st amber... then 6 seconds (or less if there's a red light cam. Opps I shouldn't hjave said that. I SHOULDNT HAVE SAID THAT... and 16 hit is Side st red, and we're all red and all stop and in clearance... 3-5 seconds and hit 1 begoins the cycle again. 

One mechanical incorrect advance whether a step was missed or 2 steps happened, the intersection would be in trouble, as each result of each step has an expected feedback but that little computer monitoring the voltage present on either streets Walk ped circuits, and either streets Green balls, has to agree with the expectqation or the computer will fail into a "TBC" (Timed based coordination" mode and continue sending out the hit pulses on que, but signal the DOT That it has disconnected for incoming commands and dropping offline and becoming invisible to their Central P.U. and generate a truoble ticket work order in our dispatch office or now, on our unit laptops. 

Should THAT fail again and go critical it will power down in standby mode and go into TBC-FaiLm mode which allows the stand alone original 90 second cycle mechanical timeclock to take over the reigns (it's always spinning and doing it any in concert with the computer.)

Since clearly all of these layers of backups on top of backups and fail-safes all have to be functioning within a very tight degree of tolerance for imperfections whether they're simultanious functions are being pressed into any actual need, howerer rarely needed or required, is a tort-block and economic protection against frivilious lawsuits, and saves lives and keeps the accident incident level due to neglect or any accusation of a lazzie-fare maintenence accusations as so forth... But you're issue is a simple production count totaler... 

I think you ought to have a secondary or even backup on that backup so that a manual selector can be employed to swap the bad for the working (electrically, not physically, all 3 would be installed and running until press ganged into usefullness.. until a qualified person can be conveniently called and each intrinisic "can't do this without a *____*" issue no longer becomes a 3 am wake-up call... because these simple enough to fix but each little failure turns into a shipwreak when you're not present, amirite?

"What we require now is a reat of electromechanical prowess an and tenure and a degree of intrepidity before the whole shebang gets derailed and goes down in flames... and all is shot to heII and annd the fingers start pointing every which way but loose..." - Parapherased from "Star Trek,: "The Undiscovered COuntry" (Dialogue originally from CAPTAIN Spock, (Leanored Nimoy."

(Purposeful lteration mine authorship, Darren Dolph D&%^OS)
Copywright 2022, all rights reserved.


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## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

LGLS said:


> Just because A happened and then B happened, doesn't mean A caused B. Our traffic signal controllers used to be completely mechanical manufactured anywhere between the 1940 to the 1990s, before they were all replaced with modern ASTC controllers. The originals had to be upgraded and intercepted and a mmall computer NYC DOT designed custom pulse generator which followed specific timed programs binary-based with a unique changable "addressable code" were employed in Manhattan only, and were all interconnect to a standard CATV coaxial intranet system with multiple node amplifiers, were used to do the actual step-advances for the 17-22 circuit 16-segment cams to keep the traffic on the major avenues flowing in a perfectly timed 32 MPH "cascade. typically on a 90 second repeating cycle. 1st step 1 meant main st green and side street walk, then 2 skip, 4th hit becan DW flash, then 2 hits, then 8th hit DW steady and main st. Amber... then 9th hit Main red (now all is red called "clearance." 2 seconds pause to hit 10 which is side st. Green and Main St. walk -then 11 and 12 placeholders, 13 is Dw flash, 14 is placeholder 15 is DW steady and side st amber... then 6 seconds (or less if there's a red light cam. Opps I shouldn't hjave said that. I SHOULDNT HAVE SAID THAT... and 16 hit is Side st red, and we're all red and all stop and in clearance... 3-5 seconds and hit 1 begoins the cycle again.
> 
> One mechanical incorrect advance whether a step was missed or 2 steps happened, the intersection would be in trouble, as each result of each step has an expected feedback but that little computer monitoring the voltage present on either streets Walk ped circuits, and either streets Green balls, has to agree with the expectqation or the computer will fail into a "TBC" (Timed based coordination" mode and continue sending out the hit pulses on que, but signal the DOT That it has disconnected for incoming commands and dropping offline and becoming invisible to their Central P.U. and generate a truoble ticket work order in our dispatch office or now, on our unit laptops.
> 
> ...


Well my simple product count totaler was backed up with a complete replacement unit, ready to go on a moment’s notice. Unfortunately, certain parts, notably the scaling board which was unused and never in service but old, failed within 48 hours of service, this is unforeseeable.
During the bench rebuild of the original I determined that the Hall pickup was the original failure, and not the scaling board, so I immediately placed an order for a replacement. 
When the plant down call came, the new scaling board was then removed and installed in the second meter with its good Hall pickup.


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