Omron's D6F-05N Body Style

Factory calibration and bypass design assistance for unique flow sensing requirements

When you’re producing products in +100K per year volumes, it’s generally not difficult to find a sensor company willing to work with your custom requirements. But what about 10K, 1K or even a few hundred units per year? Understandably, many companies cannot economically offer custom solutions for lower volume applications. Omron, however, has the ability to fill in some of these gaps.

Calibration

For those customers who want to measure a (non-corrosive) gas other than what the standard Omron products are calibrated for, the Omron factory team is able to assist with custom calibrations for moderate annual usage levels. Each request is evaluated by the factory to determine if adequate engineering resources are available, and provide customers with lead-time for initial evaluation units. 

Most of Omron’s standard mass flow sensors are calibrated for AIR, except the for the D6F-05N2 model, which is an aluminum alloy body calibrated for 5 LPM of natural gas. Using this same body, there are already two additional calibrations also available as standard part numbers: D6F-01N2 (1 LPM natural gas) and D6F-02L2 (2 LPM propane).

Other gases available for custom calibration include argon, carbon dioxide, heliox, helium, nitrogen, nitrogen oxides and oxygen among others (hydrogen is not currently available). 

Because the thermal properties and densities of different gases vary, the output curves for them will vary as well. To optimize the output with some gases, minor circuitry changes are made to the sensors. Other gases are similar enough to air that a new output curve is all that needs to be provided.

Figure 1: Standard D6F-05N with Helium Gas (curve from 20-40LPM is too flat).

Figure 2: Modified D6F-05N with Helium Gas (optimized resolution)

Figures 1 and 2 show the standard D6F-05N2-000 measuring helium gas versus samples with modified circuitry, resulting in an improved amplification factor.

Keep in mind, for gases significantly heavier than air, a larger sensor body may be required. For example, to measure 5 LPM of Propane, the D6F-05N body is too small, and the D6F-10/20/50 style body would be required. Conversely, gases much lighter than air need a smaller body to achieve a stable reading as shown in the above Helium output curves.

Bypass Design Help

Often it is desirable for a small, low-volume flow sensor to be used in a “bypass set-up” to measure larger flows (“Reduce Applied Costs With Flow Sensor Bypass Set-Up.”)

To assist with the bypass design, Omron’s Engineering Department can input some of the basic system parameters into their Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software to perform a numerical analysis and provide customers with a starting point for their design (Request Form).

It should be noted that the CFD analysis provides an estimate for ideal conditions, which the customer should then test to verify or adjust based on actual conditions.

For additional information please contact Omron Electronic Components at 847-882-2288, by emailing components@omron.com, or by visiting www.components.omron.com