How Rotary Encoders Solve

Your Positioning Problems:

New capabilities in encoders give you an edge in applications ranging from
iron roughnecks to top drives.

Oil & Gas Industry

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ByJohn Reading, Oil & Gas Market Manager, Dynapar Corp.

How Rotary Encoders Solve Your Positioning Problems

New capabilities in encoders give you an edge in applications ranging from iron roughnecks to top
drives.

For your customers, life is simple: The rig has to work. In an industry where an hour of downtime can cost tens
of thousands of dollars, failure is not an optionor at least not an option that will keep your customers coming
back. You need to build equipment they can depend on, and that means it has to survive shock and vibration,
temperatures ranging from Arctic to Saharan. It's got to meet a stack of reliability and safety standards that
change with every region. And most of all, it has to get the job done, which is where closed-loop feedback
comes in. Whether you need to calculate rotary speed or linear position, you need to know the exact location of
your equipment at all times. Learn how to take advantage of new capabilities in the latest generation of
encoders to deliver performance you can trust and give you—and your customers—a leg up on the
competition.

The oil and gas industry presents one of the Although an incremental encoder is an essential
toughest operating environments around. Your part of a high-quality feedback system, it does not
customers not only expect absolute reliability from actually track position or velocity per se.
your systems, they demand performance and they
need it to be fast, because on a drilling rig, time is
money. Given the high cost of downtime, it's natural
to want to stay with familiar technology. After all,
you don't want to be the one explaining why the
slick new sensor you picked out doesn’t work.
Sticking with the tried-and-true is safe. The problem
is that sticking with the tried-and-true might also
mean you’re just stuck. The latest encoder
technology can offer better ways to solve existing
problems.

The absolute advantage

For years, incremental encoders have been the
gold standard in oil and gas applications, reporting
position and velocity in a variety of systems ranging
from draw works to wireline systems. They can
perform, without a doubt, but they also have their In an incremental optical encoder, a patterned
limitations. optical disc passes between an LED and a
photosensor to interrupt or "chop" the beam (see
figure 1). In response, the photodiode generates a

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square-wave electrical output—basically, a pulse Absolute encoders are available in both optical and
count proportional to the amount the motor shaft or magnetic designs. In an optical absolute encoder,
load has moved. To convert to velocity or position the simple chopper-style disk is replaced by a more
data, you need additional electronics such as a sophisticated code disk on which each ring
PLC, counter, or variable-frequency drive (VFD) to represents one bit of output (see figure 2). In this
calculate the rpm or how far the load has traveled way, the absolute encoder represents each location
from a preset home position established at startup. as a unique digital word. The approach allows the
absolute encoder to retain a record of the position
even without power applied and to return to
operation immediately upon restart, without
rehoming.

Figure 1: In an incremental optical encoder, a

patterned disk turns with the motor shaft or load to
"chop" the beam passing from an LED to a
photodiode. Additional electronics convert the pulse
stream to displacement from some established
home position.

Incremental encoders can be both reliable and high

performance, with resolutions up to 10,000 PPR.
With the addition of an index channel, they can
track an unlimited number of shaft rotations. That
has made them a go-to solution for applications
ranging from cranes to catwalks.

The problem arises when the power goes out.

Because the output of an incremental encoder
depends upon the incremental advance from some
set home position, the system needs to be re- Figure 2: The disk for an incremental optical encoder
homed in order to provide accurate position data. (top) features evenly-spaced transparent and
That's not necessarily a problem for an iron opaque regions, along with a single-pulse index
roughneck doing pipe make/break. It can be a huge channel (inside ring) to track full turns. In an
issue, however, if you have 10,000 feet of pipe absolute encoder code disk (bottom) each ring
corresponds to one bit of resolution.
downhole and you can no longer trust your depth
reading. In these kinds of mission-critical
Although the industry is dominated by ruggedized
applications, forward-looking companies are
optical encoders, for certain niche applications like
beginning to use absolute encoders.
depth tracking, magnetic encoders provide a better
Inside absolute encoders

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1675 N. Delany Road ♦ Gurnee, IL 60031
P: 1.800.873.8731 ♦ F: 1.847.662.6633 ♦ custserv@dynapar.com ♦ www.dynapar.com
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solution. Among absolute encoders, they provide the secondary disk indexes, allowing the system to
the highest multiturn resolution, making them a maintain an absolute record of position over a
good fit for well logging systems, for example. The significant distance.
problem is that there's only a limited amount of Absolute encoders provide extremely high
space in depth-tracking equipment. Meanwhile, resolution. Dynapar's AX71 optical absolute
many magnetic encoders on the market are just encoder, for example, is available with up to 17 bits
standard designs wrapped with bulky enclosures of resolution in single-turn format with an additional
and ruggedized to meet hazardous area 12 bits of resolution in multiturn absolute
classification requirements. Hall-effect magnetic positioning. That means up to 131,072 counts over
encoders give you a better option. 4096 full rotations, making the encoder a good fit
for applications like depth mapping that need long
A Hall-effect sensor is a semiconductor device that travel.
generates a voltage spike when it encounters a
changing magnetic field. Hall-effect magnetic The oil and gas industry is just starting to work with
encoders use an array of Hall-effect sensors, absolute encoders, which means that early
integrating both sensor and processor on a single adopters can gain a substantial advantage. The
chip for a robust, compact solution. A key technology itself is not new, though. Absolute
advantage to the array sensor is that it averages encoders have a long record of success in
signal over multiple detectors. That makes it unforgiving applications like steel mills, military
insensitive to misalignment, shock, and vibration. At vehicles, and offshore propulsion systems. They
the same time, the chip-level integration keeps it can withstand shocks as high as 100 g’s and
small and lightweight. If you've wanted to use a temperatures ranging from -40° to 100° C.
magnetic encoder but didn't think you had room,
think again. A Hall-effect magnetic encoder can be Absolute encoders especially shine in applications
as little as 60% the size of conventional designs. where you can’t afford to rehome the system after a
power outage. If the power goes out on the
incremental encoder on the drawwork drum or
gearbox, the system is no longer getting block or
depth position. That means wasting precious time
while you re-establish position. An absolute
encoder maintains record of absolute position no
matter how many times the power goes out.

Networked communications
In addition to maintaining record of location,
absolute encoders are inherently digital devices.
That makes them compatible with digital
communications protocols like BiSS, CANopen
DeviceNet, Interbus, ProfibusDP, and more.
Networked components deliver a number of
Figure 1: A Hall-effect array sensor averages the important benefits. Today's equipment features
signal over multiple detectors to deliver robust, dozens of sensors that all need to pass data back
high-resolution performance that is insensitive to to the machine controls. You could use individually
misalignment, shock, and vibration. hardwired devices, but adding cabling and
connectors just means adding points of failure and
Absolute encoders are available in single-and multi- cost.
turn designs. The multi-turn design is analogous to
the index channel on the incremental encoder— Networked components eliminate the need for
each time the primary disk completes a revolution, hardwiring. Whether you're using BiSS to replace a

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1675 N. Delany Road ♦ Gurnee, IL 60031
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star connection with a daisy chain or networking State-of-the-art incremental encoders deliver other
your encoders together using a protocol like benefits. For some applications, the cable from the
DeviceNet, digital communications can save you encoder to the VFD typically runs near the power
money. With a network protocol, you can access cables for the motors, possibly in the same tray.
the entire network through any port. That means a This exposes the encoder signal to high EMI. In
technician or operator just has to plug in to offshore drilling applications, the cable runs
troubleshoot or update any device on the network. continue to grow. That increases signal attenuation,
Even better, the system can be monitored and making signal-to-noise ratio a bigger and bigger
controlled remotely. If you're an OEM or end user, concern.
a problem with the system no longer requires
putting a support engineer on an airplane. The latest incremental optical encoders feature
enhanced output drivers to boost the signal integrity
The industrial communications protocols have been substantially. Previous generations of output drivers
designed for fast, robust, error-free generated a low power signal, reliable over only a
communications among a high number of devices. few hundred feet. New drivers can deliver output
For example, voltages of more than 24 V and push the signal as
far as 1000 feet. Before, even at 200 feet, you had
• BiSS: supports master-slave configurations to sacrifice some part of your performance. In the
of up to eight sensors, clock rates of up to latest scenario, there are no trade-offs necessary.
10 Mb/s; 6-bit cyclic redundancy check
(CRC) guards against errors
• CANopen: 1 Mbaud/s data rate; Hamming
What to know before you inquire
distance=6
• DeviceNet: handles up to 64 nodes per
1) What is the primary goal? Speed or position
network; speeds up to 500 kbaud; 15-bit
feedback?
CRC
2) Do you need absolute position information or
• Interbus: supports up to 256 subscribers; can you afford to re-home at startup?
500 kb/s transmission speed; 16-bit CRC 3) What are the environmental conditions(e.g.
• ProfibusDP: supports up to 126 slaves; 12 hazardous, corrosive, temperature, vibration,
Mb/s data rate; Hamming distance=4 radiation, etc.)?
4) Do you require redundancy?
With the variety of options available, you can easily 5) What are your budget constraints?
put together a solution to fit the needs of your 6) What is the skill level of your
application. design/installation team?
7) What is the skill level of your customer in
Optical incremental encoders get tough terms of maintenance and tuning?
Today's optical encoders are rugged enough to J.R.
survive anything the Oilfield can throw at them.
Chip-level integration, improved bearing retention,
and the use of Mylar code discs rather than glass
make them shock tolerant to 400 G’s, over Sooner or later, even the best product has to be
temperatures from -40° to 100° C. Encapsulated replaced, whether it's in a new system or one
electronics and labyrinthine seals protect against already out in the field. Components can be end-of-
even the dirtiest environments. You can find optical life, unreliable, or just fail to perform. Replacing an
encoders rated for ATEX Zone 1 applications like outmoded or subpar component may seem easy
draw works and iron roughnecks. For offshore and obviousall you have to do is find one with the
applications, optical incremental encoders are same specifications. The problem with this
available with 316 stainless-steel housings and approach is that it ignores the opportunities new
ingress protection ratings up to IP 67. technology can give you, not just for solving

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1675 N. Delany Road ♦ Gurnee, IL 60031
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problems today but for scaling your platform for has prized performance and reliability over budget,
tomorrow. Looking for a one-to-one replacement but analysts believe that we’re entering a period of
misses the opportunity to improve performance and greater cost consideration and tighter margins. As
scale for the future. an equipment designer, you need to leverage every
tool at your disposal to maintain a competitive
Today's best-in-class components take advantage advantage and serve your customers in the
of chip-scale integration and improved technology marketplace. The latest encoder technology can
to deliver more performance at a lower cost of allow you to do just that.
ownership. Traditionally, the oil and gas industry

Dynapar offers the world's broadest range of encoders, resolvers and accessories for motion feedback control. For 50
years, the four brands of Dynapar have been providing innovative, customized system solutions for virtually any heavy-
duty, industrial, servo, or light-duty application. Innovative products, designed your way, delivered when you need them—
that's the Dynapar difference. Click here for more information.

DYNAPAR ♦ Experts In Rotary Feedback Solutions

1675 N. Delany Road ♦ Gurnee, IL 60031
P: 1.800.873.8731 ♦ F: 1.847.662.6633 ♦ custserv@dynapar.com ♦ www.dynapar.com