Specifications

Sicon-8 Technical Manual CircuitWerkes, Inc.
41
Channel setup functions:
Sicontroller channel main setup. The
“Telemetry” tab lets you set the text that will be
displayed for that channel’s meters and also
the meter’s scale. You may also select here if
the current channel’s status input will be
inverted. When inverted, the LED is “on” when
the channel is ungrounded.
The “calibrate” button pops-up the meter
calibration form for the current channel.
You can set the status labels to dynamically
change between on & off states.
The Alarm viuals affects how alarms are
displayed in the software only. You can set the
meter scale to display all alarm values, only
display values that are currently enabled, or
none (solid green background).
The “flash” check boxes determine how the
channel behaves during an actual alarm.
Calibrating meters is super easy. Just put in
the value that the sample represents, scale
type, make up a Units label, set the voice
label & click "apply". Alternately, if you know
what the scaler value (scale multiplier)
actually is, you can directly enter that
number on the second line. This is handy
when dealing with meter outputs, like VSWR,
that typically have little or no outputs. You
will only have to know what the full scale
output sample voltage is for that meter &
then divide that number into the maximum
value shown on the face of the meter. Note
that there is a minor difference between how
the software numbers the spoken units
(Volts, Amps, etc) & how the DTMF
numbers it. When entering via DTMF the
labels are numbered 0 thru 9. In the
software, they are labeled 1 thru 10. The
format box lets you choose how decimals are
displayed.
Setting meter alarms & actions. The
Sicon-8 has two types of alarms for each
channel. They are critical and non-critical
(or action) alarms. Critical alarms cause
e-mail & telephone alerts to be generated.
Non-critical, or action, alarms can be set to
perform automated responses in order to
attempt to fix a problem before it becomes
critical. Autofix cannot operate relays in
latching mode, but will close any relay
momentarily, even relays that are normally
latching. The Global Alarm Display box
lets you display alarm settings on the
meter faces & select if either alarm causes
a pop-up alert to appear on-screen when
the Sicon-8 sets an alarm.
Spoken Phrase or word Meter Units ID # Spoken Phrase or word Meter Units ID #
Percent 0 Degrees 1
Volts 2 Amps 3
Watts 4 Millivolts 5
Milliamps 6 Milliwatts 7
KiloVolts 8 KiloWatts 9
HINT:
Meter calibrations are saved in site files and site export files, but they are sometimes not automatically uploaded to your Sicon-8
when you perform an “Upload Changes” or an “Upload Everything” function. Therefore, if you reset your Sicon-8 and re-load your site data,
you will, at least, have to check the calibration button for each channel and then, if necessary, click the upload button, if the calibration is
not correct. The calibration form should already have the last calibration info already filled in for you, however.
Important
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Meter calibration uses floating point math. Some older firmware versions use a smaller canned routine that
only multiplies by whole numbers. For instance, if you enter a calibration value of 24.7 you get 24.0. If you enter 24.7kW as 24,701, it'll
work. To work around this limitation, you can use the "scale value" box instead of the “sample value” box. “Scale Value” writes the
scaling value directly to the firmware. This limitation does not affect main FW version 1.58 and higher ..
For example, you want the meter to read 24.7. When you enter 24.7, it calibrates to 24.0 because the math is truncated. You look at
the "Scale Value" line and notice that the value is set to 5.3. So, you divide 24.7 by 24 which is a multiplier of 1.029. Multiply 1.029 x
5.3 = 5.45. So, 5.45 can be entered on the scale line (and uploaded, of course) and the meter will calibrate to 24.7.