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from the Instrumentation department...
Transmitter cable shielding
Continuous process industries, DCS questions. topic
Posted by Anonymous on 20 July, 2008 - 1:02 pm
Why the shield of transmitter cable is connected to one side onle, why not the other side?

Reply will be appreciated.

bobdoha @ yahoo.com


Posted by Curt Wuollet on 20 July, 2008 - 1:50 pm
To prevent ground loops.
With one end connected, there is no current in the shield. (except for field interception, which is the purpose of the shield).

Regards
cww


Posted by zare.v on 23 July, 2008 - 10:01 pm
If a shielded signal line is grounded on both ends, a ground loop noise problem may be generated. You know a voltage difference will usually be found between various ground points in a plant.

Hope this helps you.


Posted by Dick Caro on 23 July, 2008 - 10:02 pm
Slight correction. It is not JUST a noise problem. You do not want the shield of you transmitter cable to be the wiring conduit between plant section grounding grids that may be at different potential. If you connect the shield to ground at
both ends, you will form this wiring path that may conduct hundreds to thousands of amps of current between the grids. You will surely burn out this line, perhaps start a fire, and maybe electrocute the installation technician. It's a Safety Hazard!

Dick Caro
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E-mail: RCaro@CMC.us
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Posted by awalinski on 29 August, 2008 - 4:58 pm
But we did have a situation where the level x-mitter would go to 0 once we started the pump.
We checked every possible piece of wire and everything was good. In a desperation we grounded x-mitter at both ends. Now it's reading correctly.

What could be an explanation for this?


Posted by Roy Matson on 30 August, 2008 - 5:55 pm
To prevent ground loops which in turn cause noise on the signal. It only takes small changes in ground potential across the plant to cause a current flow in the shield which then couples to the signal wires.

A good example of this would be a sterio system, if you ground the shields at the turntable you will get a very large 60Hz hum

Roy

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