Do You PWM?

How does PWM help You to remotely monitor Industrial IoT Sensor Devices?

PWM sensors are amazing, super useful and versatile. What are they? You’ll learn all about ’em in this here story.

Pulse Width Modulation, a.k.a., PWM, is a sensor standard used for measuring pulse counts from a variety of sensors.

The main Industrial IoT application that comes to mind is counting pulses / spins / ticks for remotely monitoring flow meters. Flow meters measure water usage, how much water is flowing through a pipe, or any other combination of liquid or fluid like substance.

PWM is a technique for getting a pulsing signal from voltage transmissions. It’s a way to detect on and off patterns that are pulses we can count with sensor adapters. The number of pulses corresponds to a real world value you care about. For example, each pulse from a McCrometer flowmeter might mean that 10 gallons or 40 liters have flowed by.

You’ve got a friend and powerful sensor standard in PWM. Our customers use Tools.Valarm.net to remotely monitor PWM sensor adapters connected to a variety of flow meters, like those made by McCrometer, EKM Metering, or hydraulics and machinery manufacturers.

All you’ve got to do is attach your PWM sensors to PWM sensor adapters from Shop.Valarm.net. You can see photos here of Industrial IoT examples where sensors connect to the Ground, Pull – Up, and Sensor Input channels in the green connection block.

Once your PWM sensor wires are all wired up and connected to your sensor hubs, you’ll see your sensor information on Tools.Valarm.net. And that’s when and where the magic happens. You can map it, graph it, analyze it, API forward it, and do just about anything you want, to your heart’s content.

You can access your sensor information from anywhere, on any device. Simple and easy-to-use web dashboards, like you see in the screenshots here, give you a quick understanding of what’s happening with your remote assets in the field.

For example, monitoring water wells and aquifer health with 4-20mA sensor adapters connected to water level sensors / pressure transducers and PWM sensors attached to flow meters. That means cost-effective, rapidly deployable water resources management for you, your teams, and your organization.

PWM compatible sensors are all around us. Some flowmeters have impellers / propellers inside the pipes that physically spin. In this case with mechanical flowmeters and the hall effect combine their powers to help give you pulses / spins and report those as PWM counts.

There are also magnetic flow meters that don’t have any moving parts, but need to be battery powered to detect flow. Some pumps are or can be equipped with hall effect sensors so they can be measured with PWM sensor adapters.

Anything that spins can report pulses for each revolution, letting you easily count RPMs (Revolutions Per Minute) for industrial equipment and machinery like hydraulics and fluid power. There are plenty of PWM sensor monitoring needs out there. What are Yours?

We’ve mentioned a variety of sensors here that tell you how powerful the PWM sensor standard is. Industrial sensors like flow meters are made by a variety of hardware manufacturers around the world. Our customers like to use flow meters made by McCrometer and EKM Meters.

However, since Tools.Valarm.net is an open platform, you can use sensors made by just about any company from around the world. We’re happy to work with you to find what works best to help your business improve operations with remote monitoring.

Sometimes all you need to monitor are PWM sensors. Sometimes you just need more. Take a gander at our Customer Stories to see how industries around the world combine PWM with other sensors to remotely monitor water, air, vehicles, and a whole lot more.

You’ll see how our Industrial IoT customers apply and integrate PWM sensors with other sensor standards like:

That’s your quick and easy overview intro to PWM / Pulse Width Modulation sensors. See our blog for more stories about who use Industrial IoT sensors for remote monitoring, and how they do it. I honestly appreciate your feedback. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’ve got any questions.

 

Questions?

Whether you need to monitor water, air quality, bridges, hydraulics, fleet vehicles with industrial equipment, machinery, trucks, trailers, flood warning and monitoring systems, or anything else, we’re happy to help your organization monitor anything, anywhere.

Have a look at our Customer Stories page for more examples of how Tools.Valarm.net is used by various industries to monitor things like:

Since Tools.Valarm.net is an open platform, your organization can remotely monitor sensors made by any hardware manufacturer around the world. You can use sensor adapter standards (like RS-232, Modbus, 4-20mA, and PWM) to cost-effectively monitor sensors made by any company. Below are a few favorites our customers like to use:

 

How can you, your teams, and your organization improve operations and benefit from effective Industrial IoT applications?

Use custom Web Dashboards to remotely monitor your sensor systems from any of your devices, like phones or tablets.

We’re happy to help your organization deploy your most effective remote monitoring systems for your specific needs.

Please don’t hesitate to Talk To Us at Info@Valarm.net if you’ve got any questions.