Customers are talking about COMPASS®® for Pressure calibration software. Here’s what they are saying about how they use it, why they chose it, and how they like it.
Question: Describe the Applications for Which you are Using COMPASS® for Pressure Software
“I work in a nuclear power station. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requires that the test equipment we use at the plant be calibrated and traceable back to NIST. We calibrate everything from pressure gauges to flow meters, multimeters, Meggers – there’s a pretty big range of equipment that we calibrate here.
We use CFP (COMPASS® for Pressure) for mainly analog and digital pressure gauges. There’s a product ... a little pressure module that plugs into a hand-held digital readout. It has a RS-232 port out so it really makes it easy for me to use that product because I can turn on COMPASS® for Pressure and walk away from it, and it automatically sets the calibrator to put out whatever pressure I need, and then it reads what the pressure module’s reading. Process probably takes five minutes or so.” -Steve L., Instrument Tech III, Nuclear Industry
“We are an independent calibration house providing calibrations to a multitude of different customers.“COMPASS® for Pressure – when it comes to talk to a pressure device, you can do that. COMPASS® for pressure is very flexible and well-designed. It will let you make anything that’s out there a standard if you deem it so. That’s a really good aspect of COMPASS® for Pressure, that is, it has flexibility built into it.” -Steve A., Calibration Manager, Third Party Calibration Lab
“We’re using COMPASS® to calibrate the Druck DPI 605 Pressure Calibrator and basically anything we can put onto the AMH system from DHI – anything as simple as a leak tester, a cross leak tester we have here, we put those on there. We do a wide range of equipment using COMPASS® and our AMH.” -Nick C., Calibration Manager, Electronic and Pressure, Defense Industry
“COMPASS® is used in our Pressure Lab, in conjunction with our DH Instruments FPG- 8601, to calibrate virtually all of the low pressure devices we see in our company. It is also used to calibrate off of our company’s DH Instruments PPC4 Pressure Controllers.
We are looking to expand the use of the COMPASS® software. We are in testing right now to use this software to automate our Ruska 7250xi Controllers as well as our DH Instruments PPC4 controllers. We want to automate as many of these devices as possible in the very near future.” -Michael S., Calibration Manager, Test and Measurement Distributor
“We use it for pressure controllers, deadweight testers, pressure gauges – digital or analog. We manufacture pressure transmitters supplied to oil companies, gas companies, pharmaceutical companies and power companies. CFP is extremely useful to test the equipment that builds and tests these products. Final calibration of end products is part of the manufacturing process.
We perform about 220 calibrations a month. They’re all on a calibration schedule, either three months or six months, depending on the calibration history.” -Eric J., Metrology Lab Manager, Process Automation Company
Question: What are the Top Features of COMPASS® for Pressure Software?
“The top one is definitely the opportunity to have full automation.
It helps to eliminate errors. When you’re taking readings and writing down data sometimes you’ll write down a number that’s out of tolerance and you don’t even realize it, and the software helps catch that because it tells you right off the bat that reading was out of tolerance. That’s a big plus for us.
Automating the reports, so I … don’t have to hand-do them. Before I was actually sitting down at a word processor and transferring my data over into a form I had made. This way all I have to do is push a button and it prints out the data for me.” -Steve L., Instrument Tech III, Nuclear Industry
“Number one has got to be the flexibility of being able to communicate with a multitude of devices, whether that be a DUT (device under test) or a standard that you want to use.
It has the capability of setting up what’s called a manual test so that you can play while you’re adjusting a device, but it will still take a calibration point for you. The manual mode and automated test mode – having those two, that’s a great feature.
The third feature is the built-in features within a test – from soak times to dwell times to ramp times – just the flexibility that was built into the product.” -Steve A., Calibration Manager, Third Party Calibration Lab
“Top one is the automation side certainly. That side works very, very well.
Being able to also connect it to our RPM4 and use it for other calibrations that aren’t automated, but we can use it in manual mode. That works really well.
It controls the AMH beautifully and takes all the information of the piston and grabs all the values off the PG7000, which is the main terminal, really well.” -Nick C., Calibration Manager Electronic and Pressure, Defense Industry
“The top features of the COMPASS® software are the ease of automation, the overall ease of use, and the product support from Fluke Calibration. This has to be the most user-friendly software I have used.” -Michael S., Calibration Manager, Test and Measurement Distributor
“Totally automated. All my pressure standards here are DH Instruments so with COMPASS® it’s 100 percent automated. That’s the big thing.
I can use it for any manufacturer, put any product as a standard. Use a pressure controller from any manufacturer and set it up as a standard and use it.” -Eric J., Metrology Lab Manager, Process Automation Company
Question: How has COMPASS® for Pressure Software Helped Your Operation?
“It makes recording and reporting a lot easier. I’ve tried to automate this lab as much as I can and COMPASS® has helped me big.
COMPASS® for Pressure was very intuitive, very easy to learn. There were just a couple of questions I had and they were quickly answered. That’s one thing I do like about the product — it’s very easy to just figure out what’s going on. -Steve L., Instrument Tech III, Nuclear Industry
“There are no transposition errors because the data is being collected digitally most of the time. Anything that can communicate, whether through a serial or a GPIB, there’s no transposition error now. There are certain efficiencies that you’re going to gain from having that automated test function run.
The recent thing Fluke has done is give you the ability to import the results into MET/TRACK. This will gain the efficiency of not having to type in a customer’s name, address and all that sort of detail into a calibration report. It saves time and reduces a potential error.” -Steve A., Calibration Manager, Third Party Calibration Lab
“Basically it automates the calibration of our high-end calibrators. We set this thing up, press a button and it goes off and calibrates and gets all the values using the RS-232, which is absolutely fantastic. We like the way for certain with the AMH, the way it’s all closed loop and you can basically dial in a pressure and all the calculations and uncertainties, and everything’s all sorted out for you — the local air pressure and temperature and all that is all compensated for. That’s one part we really like.” -Nick C., Calibration Manager Electronic and Pressure, Defense Industry
“The use of the COMPASS® software coupled with the use of the DHI FPG, has enabled us to cut our turn-times in half for low pressure devices. Our old processes were time consuming and nowhere near as accurate as our current process. We have also been able to move more junior technicians into this process and stop relying on our highest-level technicians to perform this work.
What used to take hours to do in a manual process can now be done in significantly less time with very little tech time used. The software is easy to train others to use.” -Michael S., Calibration Manager, Test and Measurement Distributor
“It’s a time saver. It’s probably cut my calibration time in half. It automatically takes the data from the unit under test; that improves the quality of data, especially in absolute mode. We eliminated the error of putting the wrong mass on the deadweight tester so you got a wrong pressure point.
We have two people in the lab. With five pressure standards, we probably have to have four operators if they weren’t automated and we were doing it the old way. With COMPASS® for Pressure, one person can handle all five if he wanted to.
It’s going to save money. We made our investment in buying our automated standards. It’s going to free up my time to do other stuff.” -Eric J., Metrology Lab Manager, Process Automation Company