Alarm monitoring
Dewesoft uses alarms to set different digital states according to acquired data and displays the state of the alarms on the online screen. The alarm monitoring function can also be activated for a digital output to an A/D board.
When you select the Alarm tab on the Dewesoft Setup screen, you will be able to enter:
- Basic settings - to Add / Delete alarm; set eventual physically digital Alarm output selection; define Use alarms when and Alarm reset settings (set condition for reset alarm)
- Alarm conditions - conditions to Add (New) / Change / Remove and define Alarm start condition or “Don’t start” condition and eventual Alarm stop conditions
Basic settings
Add (New) / Delete alarm monitoring channel
When you select the Alarms tab to define a new Alarm, an empty alarm list appears on the lower part of the screen:
It has two icons: * Plus - to add a new alarm condition * Minus - to remove the selected alarm condition.
When you press the Add alarm button, a new alarm condition is displayed:
To set up the alarm we use:
- STEP
Common settings - set eventual physically digital Alarm output selection; define Use alarms when and Alarm reset settings (set condition for reset alarm)
- STEP
Conditions settings - to Add (New) / Change / Delete and define Alarm start condition or “Don’t start” condition and eventual Alarm stop conditions with Condition setup
Alarm output selection
The Enable alarm monitoring and Use digital output box are checked.
If no alarm is checked, the alarm will be virtual - only available for display.
After checking one output in the Alarm output selection the alarms will be output on selected channel.
After checking two outputs in the Alarm output selection the alarm will be output on two output channels
Use alarms when
You can select the following options from the Use alarms when drop-down list:
- alarm while acquiring data
- alarm during storing
Alarm reset settings
Select the appropriate choice from the displayed list:
- Never - when the Start condition is carried out, the Alarm remains turned on until the end of the acquisition or storage of data.
- Manual - when the Start condition is carried out, the Alarm turns on and in the first row of the display screen a red Alarm ON button appears:
To manually reset the alarm, click on this button and the display will change to:
- On condition - next to the Alarm start and “Don’t start” condition on the right lower part of the screen, the Alarm stop conditions also appear:
- After - when the Start condition carries out, the Alarm turns on and will be reset after the amount of time in seconds that is entered in the field beside this control:
Set Alarm conditions
After you have configured and added the basics alarm settings, alarm conditions on the lower part of the screen can be added/changed:
- Alarm start condition or “Don’t start” condition
- Alarm stop conditions (this part is displayed only for the On condition Alarm reset settings option)
Add (New) Alarm conditions
When you press the Add alarm button beside Alarm start/stop condition or “Don’t start” condition, a new alarm condition line is displayed:
The alarm monitoring settings are similar to trigger conditions, for help with Trigger conditions see -> Setup -> Storing -> Trigger Condition setup.
NOTE: The alarm monitoring function has no influence on recording functions. It is only used to define the state of the digital output channels.
Condition setup
To change the default settings, press the Setup button in the condition line. The following window will appear:
Now you can define the alarm condition. In the left-lower area of the window, you can see the current signals, which should help you to set the conditions faster. After you have configured the settings, press the OK button to accept the changes. The new condition is now available.
If you have more than one alarm condition defined, they are combined by the OR condition. There is no relation between the output channels; therefore you can use the same or different conditions for different output channels.
The alarm monitoring conditions are similar to the trigger conditions.
For detailed information about Condition setup see -> Setup -> Storing -> Trigger Condition setup.
Change Alarm conditions
To change alarm conditions, select the condition (click once on it) and press the Setup button again to invoke the Condition setup window where condition settings can be changed.
Remove Alarm conditions
To remove an alarm condition, select the output channel and the condition to delete by clicking on it. After you have selected the condition in that way, press the Remove button.
Add event on alarm
The option Add event on alarm will create an event when an alarm occurs.
The events are stored and shown in a table as channel Alarm events.
The alarm events can be displayed in the Tabular values display widget with the time of an event and the event description.
During the storing the alarm events are also seen in the Event display in the top right corner.
