Remote Current Monitoring

You can feed CT output to a V to F converter,driving an infrared transmitter. that can be sensed at a reasonable distance with a receiver.Which again can convert revived signal in voltage.

How far is the hoist operator from the motor control. What is your approximate budget for this system? Is $10.00 too much or is $500.00 reasonable? The reason I ask is the cost of a simple transmitter that is reliable may cost $150.00US

At this point, I do not have information as to distances. There are complex telemetry systems and even fully automated dredges, but I feel this can be accomplished with a simple system.

The Voltage to Frequency conversion sounds interesting. Is there a source for this?

Thanks for the replies!

1. The one important parameter is the distance you want to communicate. without that there is no where to go.

2. Are you talking 200 yards or 2 miles? Do you want to build such a device or want to buy a device.

There are data acquisition companies that will build a system like you are talking about. Chances you will not find exactly what you want, but people can build it from modules. But, you can't even talk to them if you do not know what the distance.

I worked for a company that built a similar system for a gravel or mining company That wanted to know how much ore was in a bin 3 miles away. We built a transmitter device that read a strain gauge that told them when to send a truck to pick the stuff up. I think it cost about $3500. That wasn't much considering it cost $6000 to repair the bin after overfilling. 5 years later --still working fine. I think one of the companies that build things like that is Alligator Technologies in California. It is a small data acquisition group. Look them up-- alligatortech.com

rgalter@alligatortech.com

I think he is right. Distance is key here. Lets start there because there is simple yet effective technology to do what you want, but the distance is a crucial element in how to start off. Also, can there be a hard wire, even a small instrumentation cable, or not? Surely if it's an electric motor, you are getting power out to it already. Where is that power coming from, and can't the current detection take place there?

Are the pump & hoist generator powered? If so, entire control system could be onboard. An economical 8 function radio control could be set up for shore operation.

As a matter of fact. The remote gravel sensing system was indeed a 2 channel R/C transmitter and receiver. The DC signal from the strain gauge transducer 0-10vdc was fed into the Radio Control transmitter. Right at the control pot. it varied the pulse width of the transmission 0-2 msec. On the other end(receiver) the pulse width was filtered with Res /Cap and read with an analog meter. The over-all system accuracy was 1-2%. More than enough for that application.

Many Thanks to all who replied, I found the solution at:

www.remotecontroltech.com