Selecting an Interval Timer for manufacturing applications

Selection of the right unit requires some decisions about how the timing will be done and how many digits are needed. Some of the following issues may have a bearing on your decision.

Are you interested in showing the running time of an operation or in counting the number of cycles completed? If you eat two apples in ten minutes, the counter will show 2, the timer will show 10. Chronomix builds both timers and counters.

Counters: If you are counting 20,000 units per day you need 5 digits to show the total count. If you are producing 20 per day you only need 2 digits to show the total count. If you will reset it every shift or every 4 hours then the requirement may be different. The methods of programming varies. A counter which is to count into the thousands is usually programmed in cycles per hour. A unit which will count a few hundred a day is usually programmed in minutes and seconds per cycle or seconds only.

Timers: If you are going to show a count down in minutes and seconds you need four digits. What do you want to do when the time runs out? Horn? Light? start over?