Motor power is one of the most useful signals a plant can collect. It shows what a pump, fan, mixer or conveyor is actually doing, minute by minute, and how that changes over months. Load Controls sensors deliver that signal in the formats your control system already understands, so it can feed alarms, dashboards, energy reports and predictive maintenance.
Three ways to connect
- Analogue signals. Universal Power Cells provide isolated 4–20 mA and 0–10 V DC outputs proportional to motor power. The TP-2 provides a loop-powered 4–20 mA signal. These connect to any PLC, DCS input card, panel meter or data logger.
- Modbus. The UPC-MB communicates over RS-485 as a Modbus slave, with response time adjustable from 4 milliseconds to 8 seconds. One serial line can carry readings from several motors to a PLC, SCADA system or gateway.
- Ethernet. Load Controls also makes an Ethernet-enabled Universal Power Cell, the UPC-E, for plants that connect sensors directly to the plant network. Ask us about availability.
What plants do with the data
- Condition monitoring. A slow rise in power on a pump or fan points to wear, fouling or a blocked filter long before failure.
- Process insight. Power tracks mixture viscosity, batch end-points and flow, so it can confirm that a process is running as intended.
- Energy management. Measured kW for each motor shows where energy goes and what an efficiency change actually saved.
- Protection and alarms. The same signal can drive alarms in the control system, alongside local relay protection from a load control.
Example: cooling tower fans
On a multi-cell cooling tower or air-cooled condenser, power sensors on each fan motor feed the plant DCS. Combined with tower design data and process temperatures, the data reveals blade, drive and fill problems cell by cell and supports fan sequencing to cut energy use. Tetra Engineering, part of the same group as Tetra Distribution, can help integrate the sensors and build the application.
Read about cooling tower fan monitoring →
Planning an integration
Tell us how many motors you want to monitor, their sizes and drive types, and which control system or platform will receive the data. We will recommend sensors and outputs and send a quotation.
Request a quote →
Further reading
