SignalFire, a wireless telemetry company, expands its Ranger product offering with embedded HART and SDI-12 interface modules to provide users with greater sensor flexibility and accuracy. Launched in early 2020, the Ranger is a battery- or solar-powered LTE-M transmitter that powers sensors and transmits their measurements over LTE-M cellular networks using the MQTT/Sparkplug messaging structure to bring data into a SignalFire cloud or an existing customer platform.
The new modules add capabilities to the Ranger for interfacing with two global and major communication standards for sensors: HART & SDI-12. The Ranger can power up to 15 HART devices when equipped with the HART expansion module and up to eight devices using the SDI-12 expansion module (depending on the current draw of each device). Using this option, users can choose from a wider variety of sensors that best fit their application and reduce installation costs by using a multi-protocol sensor-to-cloud platform.
Additional benefits of using a HART instrument instead of an analog device:
• Reduces current draw in HART multi-drop mode as the current is fixed at 4mA instead of varying from 4-20mA.
• Increases measurement accuracy by directly reading the sensor value digitally with no need for data conversion.
• Reads multiple data values from a single device.
