Eletronics Designs

From time to time a client requires something to do a job which is simply not available - it must be designed and built.

With extensive experience in electronic design we have been able to give the client what is required.

Some of the electronic devices designed and built by Sapeca to date include; High Input Range Solid-state Relay, Cutter Time Display, GSM Modem Reset Timer and...

Solenoid Valve Health Monitor

CSR PGH Clay Bricks & Pavers use hundreds of solenoid valves to control the gas in their kilns. But solenoid valves do not come with any facility which lets the Control System know if it has turned on when commanded to. For this application it is essential that the Control System knows the health of each solenoid valve it is controlling.

Sapeca designed and built a Solenoid Valve Health Monitor which lets the PLC know, through voltage free relay contacts, if the valve is healthy or faulty. Moreover, it advises if a faulty valve is open circuit or if it's plunger has jammed. This product is based on a mother-board which can accept up to twenty daughter-boards. Connection is made through plug-in terminals and the entire assembly clips onto a DIN-Rail.

Each Solenoid Valve Monitor board bears a tri-colour LED to give a visual indication of the valve's health - healthy, plunger stuck or solenoid open-circuit. It should be noted that this product can only detect a stuck plunger if the coil is energised with an AC voltage. The device can be configured for any AC voltage driven solenoid valve.

Modem Watchdog

With the deregulation of electrical energy providers in New South Wales Energy Australia is installing modems in each major client's premises so that the electrical energy consumption details being recorded by new intelligent energy meters can be automatically downloaded from a central computer via a telephone line.

Experience has shown that from time to time even the smartest modem 'locks up' and will not respond to any form of handshaking from it's Data Set nor will it recognise any activity on the telephone line. Sending a technician several hundred kilometers simply to reset a locked-up modem can get expensive - especially if there are several hundred going down each month.

Energy Australia asked Sapeca to design a Modem Watchdog - so we did. The Modem Watchdog automatically resets the modem when 'lock-up' is detected. It turns the modem's power off for a few seconds then turns the power on again - the modem goes through an initialisation procedure which puts everything right -until the next 'lock-up'!