Furnaces Control and Monitor System
HeatMon system is intended to digital control and recording of complex heat treatment processes of multiple furnances using one or more computers. It will allow the creation of customized and complex heat treatment programs with any number of segments, together with precise control and recording of process temperature over time, together with up to 4 auxiliary subsystems. The system can be used to retrofit old furnaces or to equip new ones with computerized control. It can work with various temperature controllers and support up to four auxiliary control equipment on a furnace (dependent on temperature controller capabilities).
On the right side picture is a screenshot of the HTControl application that load and execute the heat treatment program at every active furnace and record and save the temperature data over time. It can control up to 8 furnaces over the same or different serial ports. To control more than 8 furnaces, additional instances of the control application must be run either on the same computer or on other computers.
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Complex heat treatment programs can be executed and recorded with an unlimited nr of segments and the ability to on/off control up to 4 auxiliary subsystems in a different state in each segment. Periodical backup saves (configurable 5 to 30 minutes interval) are done automatically, so that in the case of an unexpected interruption the process can be resumed from the last saved point. In this way the chance of a long duration heat treatment to be lost by an inadvertent event is reduced to a minimum. The temperature over time is recorded automatically for every process with precise temperature and timing, every sample being timestamped down to miliseconds with the time of read from the begining of the process (process time). Heat treatments up to 248 days in duration can be executed.
Up to 8 furnaces can be connected to a RS-485 serial link, to connect more furnaces additional serial ports are required. Multiple instances of the htcontrol application can run on the same computer to control more than 8 furnaces with one computer. Maximum number of furnaces controlled with one computer is limited by the number of serial ports available and by the number of CPU cores.
Every furnace included in this system must have a temperature controller installed, able to support Modbus serial communication. This can be made by retrofitting the existing electrical cabinet if necessary, or a new electrical cabinet can be installed. Its main role is to keep the temperature at the setpoint value, while also allow the computer to read the temperature and set new values for the setpoint. In addition the temperature controller may also have heating and cooling control, and auxiliary outputs which can be used by the computer to control the furnace auxiliary subsystems if any. The control software is designed to work with different types of temperature controllers and also new types of compatible controllers can be added, so that it can be easily adapted to the customer equipment.
Control computer system requirements:
Windows 7 or newer, 32/64 bit
x86/64 processor 1GHz or better
RAM 1GB + 35MB/furnace
graphic 1280 x 720 resolution or better
1+ serial ports RS-232/485 baud 9600 - 57600.
Up to 4 auxiliary subsystems of a furnace can be controlled by the application, through the auxiliary outputs of the temperature controller. The exact number available is dependent by the type of temperature controller used.
On the right side second picture is a screenshot of the HT Program Editor application that allow the creation and edit of HT programs, print heat treatment reports and also remote monitoring of heat treatments carried by remotely located control applications. The remote connection are only for monitoring, not allowing any control or interference with the remote process. This application is independent of furnaces and can be run on any computer, as such it can be installed as standalone from the control application. The control application require a registration key to be used, the program editor application can be used without a key.
The following temperature controllers are supported currently:
Omron E5AC and E5EC
Ascon Tecnologic KR1 and K32
Autonics TK4.
With more controllers to be added to this list. For a comprehensive description of the system and its use, please download the user manual.
Note that to install and run the heat treatment control application an activation key is required. Please contact us to install the software and to receive a license for as many instances of the control app as you need.
Also a license certificate with an activation key can be obtained free of charge for educational or non-profit use. In this case please request a non-profit license to use this software.