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"Lookout was the clear choice for us. Our customers have shown great enthusiasm for the Lookout screens displayed in their local language and their ease of navigation. The hypertrend objects make historical charting and printing a pleasure."

Jamesway Incubator Company Inc. is a world leader in the design, manufacture, and service of poultry incubation equipment. The most popular model of incubator holds more than 90,000 eggs at a time, and a typical hatchery has enough incubators to produce 1 million chicks per week.

Hatcheries vary dramatically in size. Various geographical locations and different climatic conditions (ranging from hot and humid to cold and dry) can have a negative impact on successful incubation. To remove this effect, we use an adequate ventilation system to maintain uniform temperatures year round in the hatchery.

Ventilation, in this case, refers to the heating, cooling, and control of the make-up air that we need to supply the incubators. The total incubation time for a chicken egg is 21 days. At the beginning of the incubation period, the embryo is only a few cells. By day 15 of incubation, the embryo is nearly developed, giving off heat, carbon dioxide, and moisture by diffusion through the eggshell. We must remove this heat and carbon dioxide and control the rate of moisture loss. Ventilating the incubator with fresh, preconditioned air and then exhausting the stale air is one of the most important parameters in incubation.

For the hatchery ventilation control system, we needed a software interface that would cost effectively monitor, graph, read, and write setpoints of data and expand in size from 50 I/O points to 500 or more. Hatchery facilities operate 24 hours a day, seven days per week; therefore remote alarm features and historical trending are very important. Ease of adaptability and programming were important selection criteria as well. Also, the fact that Lookout software came with all the drivers we needed made it our first choice.

Specialized Control

Room temperature, humidity, and pressure (above atmospheric) are the three HVAC variables controlled by humidifiers, cold water chillers, combination furnace and mechanical cooling units, fans, and motorized air-flow dampers. We used RTDs as the temperature probes. Humidity sensors that express zero to 100 percent RH as a 4-20 mA signal are housed in the same enclosures as the RTDs. We use a 4-20 mA differential pressure transmitter to compare the room pressure to atmospheric conditions. We use a specialized control algorithm to maintain a +.005" H ₂ O pressure in the room. This pressurization of the room has two functions:

• It ensures the incubators and hatchers have as much fresh air as they individually require
• It provides biosecurity, since this overpressure prevents migration of airborne contaminants into the room through adjacent corridors and hallways

Previously, a wall-mounted control panel managed control of temperature, humidity, and pressure in each control room. These panels, which use three separate 1/4" Din style controllers face-mounted in a FRPE enclosure, provided an easily adjustable and readable display and a NEMA 4 rating. However, they did not allow communication connections, and therefore prevented cost-effective central monitoring and data storage.

In anticipation of our customers' needs, we based our new HVAC controls on four essentials:

• PLC network nodes to form I/O
• Multilanguage color touchscreen located at each node
• Multilanguage Windows-based SCADA
• Scalability in hardware, software, and networks

Also we desired remote monitoring and pager alarm functionalities. We selected the Koyo DL205 PLC for its high power, small size, and communication features. Touchscreen made multilanguage labels easy and fit the door-front of the node enclosure. We selected Lookout as SCADA software because of its standard features:

• RS232 serial communications meant no extra communications hardware
• Easy on-line editing
• Built-in drivers library
• Graphics allowing multilanguage labels
• A powerful trending display that is easy to use and easy to print

System Benefits

One person easily programmed Lookout. The Lookout real-time editing feature allows us to upgrade customers’ process files from our head office with only a modem and phone line connected to a similarly equipped location. With customers as far away as Australia, it is important to have this feature. Installations have been done in Australia, Slovakia, Poland, Russia, USA, and Canada.

Lookout was the clear choice for us. Our customers have shown great enthusiasm for the Lookout screens displayed in their local language and their ease of navigation. The hypertrend objects make historical charting and printing a pleasure.

http://sine.ni.com/cs/app/doc/p/id/cs-127