Questions about Honeywell PKS system
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I’m not sure if there are any manufacturers in China that use Honeywell’s PKS series of DCS systems. How is their performance? Also, are the replacement parts for Honeywell’s PM I/O and FTA devices expensive? Our company plans to replace the old HITACHI EX-1000 DCS system with a setup that uses PKS C200 controllers along with PM I/O and FTA devices. Please offer your advice! This post was last edited by zi00331 on 2008-10-13 07:48
The system is good. It would be best to first explain the scale of the system before providing you with a reference price. However, if we only consider the controller and software, the cost will generally be over 1 million, not to mention other hardware… The software and controller are very expensive!
I’m using the PKS c200 system, and its stability is quite good. The configuration isn’t too complicated. But the price is too high. I think the problem is that the + power supply at the site is interleaved; the – power supply is used as a signal for the card module. This is unsafe and has a design flaw.
There are quite a number of companies that use PKS; as far as I know, Shell uses it for gasification processes at Anqing Petrochemical, Hubei Fertilizer, Shenhua Gasification, and Datang International. Xining Special Steel has also used the predecessor product of PKS. The configuration is convenient, but many problems can arise if it is not used properly. It’s mainly because it’s a new system, and even our own engineers don’t fully understand all its aspects; as a result, once it’s configured, you find many bugs.
C200 is used quite often these days; it can be considered stable. It seems that the C300 isn’t used very often.
Our factory also wants to upgrade the APM using C300+PM I/O; is that a good idea?
For the new system, we have not made full use of it; the improvement lies in adding new functions on top of the existing ones.
I recommend avoiding the PKS system. Our company uses three such systems, and their performance is unstable; moreover, the spare parts are extremely expensive. There’s no choice but to buy them despite the high cost. Just the software costs related to system expansion amount to 1 million yuan. I suggest using the domestic Zhejiang University Zhongkong DCS system, which offers good cost-performance ratios and excellent stability. We use Zhejiang University Zhongkong systems for our entire fertilizer production line and boilers, and we’ve never encountered any problems with them – they’re also easy to operate!
Accustomed to HONEYWELL’s systems, I find domestic ones to be less user-friendly and inconvenient to use. We have a workshop that has switched to an Allen-Bradley system, and it’s not possible to set an extended measurement range; the manufacturer says there is no such option! The small signal can’t be cut off either! The reaction at the output point also cannot be changed at will! The functions in adjusting control points and adjusting PV points will no longer be available!
In Allen-Bradley systems, an AI point has only one parameter, namely .AV; whereas in HONEYWELL systems, an AI point comes with multiple parameters such as .PV, .PVP, .PVRAW, etc. Needless to say, there are even more alarm options!
HONEYWELL’s DO points have a PWM function, and we use this function to control several electric heaters. If we switch to a domestic system, I really don’t know how to do it