Basic Switch Setup – Video Transcript

Welcome to the fifth in our SensorView™ Video Tutorial series: Basic Switch Setup.

We begin in the main "Workspace" window, and the first thing we have to do is to connect to the sensor as we did before. The sensor is set up currently with the default settings for the 30S1 (ToughSonic 14). We will copy it, and the first thing we have to do is to make a few changes. I like to slow things down just a little bit.

We’ll begin by changing the interval to a tenth of a second, ten readings per a second, and then select "Running Average" of ten samples. So, we will have a second’s worth of data updated ten times a second. Copy that to the sensor by dragging the—right click—and dragging the pencil. And you could see the bucket fill. Looking at my coffee cup, which wasn’t in a particularly good place.

First thing we have to do is turn the switches on, and to do that we go back to the Workspace window, click on the wiring icon, and we are going to change both the black and white wires to be sinking switches. You’ll notice the major change in the Workspace window: the representation of the switch logic. Now we can go to the switches icon and the switch output window. And there are number of choices to be made here.

First of all, on power up, we can leave it off or on. I choose off. There are two modes for the switch—setpoint or window—and we are going to set one of each in this exercise. You notice in the setpoint mode we have a hysteresis, and it's set currently for a quarter of an inch. We could make it be a half of an inch, just to change it, and that provides a band around the setpoint to prevent dithering in the event of some jitter in the measurement or turbulence, perhaps in the fluid being measured. You can choose polarity on closer or farther; let’s make it be on farther. For the sake of change, we put no delays in, but you could if you wanted to. And target state could be hold, off, or on and we’ll leave that off. And one second delay.

Switch 2: one power up could be on or off, it doesn’t matter. Let’s set the mode to window. And now, where the hysteresis was, we need width. A quarter of an inch is quite the narrow window, so let’s set up for ten inches, arbitrarily. And I’d like the polarity to be on in the window, again no delays and target state, off. So we can hit "OK" out of that. Now you can see the change in the representation of the switches.

Let’s write the parameters to the sensor. Notice that the program will alert you that you’re about to change the switch, which might be controlling some equipment. So that’s the safety alert. Now, if I point my sensor at my computer screen, we can watch the change of the logic of the switches. Note that the switch stayed indicated over here, as well as the distance here. And we’re going to come inside the set point on Switch 1, bring it up, and you see its changed state.

Once you got past that, note the half-inch hysteresis. And then we’ll continue out a little farther. At 24 inches, you’ll notice that Switch 2 has turned on here. And if I reach way back over my shoulder, I can get it go to 34 inches and the Switch 2 now turns off. The reverse is true on the way in.

So those are the basics of switch setup. In our next session, we are going to look at setting up the pump controller.

For more information on sensor outputs, visit our Ultrasonic Sensor Outputs page.  If you have any questions, please contact Senix customer service. We’re here to help!