Re: What hardware are you using for TC measurements?

["Shen, Guobao via Tech-talk" <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Rich, 

As Andrew mentioned already, we don’t directly use those, instead, for our SR, we use A-B PLC to interface with the TC sensors, and reading the result thru PLCs.

Thanks,

Guobao

From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> on behalf of Johnson, Andrew N. via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Date: Wednesday, July 22, 2026 at 12:49 PM
To: Evans, Richard K. (GRC-H000) <richard.k.evans at nasa.gov>; tech-talk at aps.anl.gov <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Subject: Re: What hardware are you using for TC measurements?

Hi Rich,

Strictly speaking we're not doing temperature measurements with these, but we have been installing quite a few Acromag BusWorks NT devices around the APS storage ring over the last year to read 4-20mA signals from remote Oxygen sensors. I like their hardware, build quality and documentation, which is comprehensive and professionally written. They offer a wide variety of I/O types including devices with 8 thermocouple inputs and 2 digital I/O signals.

We’re using the NTE series that have 2 RJ-45 Ethernet ports (which can be daisy-chained) but they now offer the NTW series with Wi-Fi plus one RJ-45, and both will accept up to 3 NTX expansion I/O units that can have mixed I/O, so you could connect up to 32 TCs with one NTE-2610 or NTW-2610 and 3 NTX 2610 units. The specs for the 2610 claim support for

• Eight differential thermocouple/milliVolt inputs
• Accepts TC types J, K, T, R, S, B, E, or N and milliVolt ranges of ±100mV or ±500mV

For network protocols they support Modbus TCP/IP (which we use with Mark Rivers’ Modbus driver over ASYN) and Ethernet/IP (use Kay's EPICS driver). They also advertise OPC-UA, MQTT and a RESTful API which I haven’t looked at, and also some local logic functionality which is configurable through the built-in web-server.

You won’t need to do any device support development, although the Modbus driver needs some understanding to configure. Things like analogue range and filtering are remotely configurable through EPICS, and there is a heartbeat/comms counter register that you can monitor for alive-checking. I’d be happy to share my IOC application to help you get started if you do choose these.

I strongly recommend looking at them, they have removable terminal blocks, mount on a DIN rail (NTX devices just plug onto one side) and need a 10-32V DC power feed.

HTH,

- Andrew

-- 

Complexity comes for free, Simplicity you have to work for.

On 7/22/26, 8:29 AM, "Tech-talk" <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> wrote:

Hello,

If you are making TC/thermocouple measurements in EPICS, please take a moment and let me know:
- What hardware you are using?
- What device support module you are using?
- Would you use it again on a new system?

We are looking for hardware options for thermocouple measurement devices that already have full EPICS device support and would be easy to use in a new system. Our goal is to select a device that ensures that we don't have to do any device support software development for it.   I am currently considering Digilent TC devices as supported by the EPICS measComp module (github.com/epics-modules/measComp), but I would like to see what else is out there.

For the purpose of this inquiry, the key requirements for the TC devices we need are:
* Software configurable for all TC types
* Reference junction temperature compensated
* Able to run continuously for > 90 days without requiring any recalibrations or disruptive services of corrections
* Able to be synchronized with other devices clocking at the same rate (say 0.1 Hz to 10 Hz)

Eager to hear about what everyone is using and what people recommend.

Thanks!
/Rich

Richard Evans, Information Systems
NASA's Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility
6100 Columbus Ave., Sandusky, Ohio 44870
mailto: richard.k.evans at nasa.gov