CHALLENGE
It is vital for food and beverage plant operators to know the position of valves at all times to ensure a reliable and smooth process flow. This type of position feedback sensor presents challenges including pinch hazards and the lack of visual valve position identification.

The most cost-efficient solution for achieving this is to use external proximity sensors. This type of position feedback is far from ideal due to safety risks, cleaning challenges and obstructed visibility. To avoid the risk of trapping limbs during valve switching operations appropriate finger protection must be fitted around the moving parts. This type of structure may adversely affect visual identification of the valve position and require corresponding edges, gap and undercuts on the cover. This makes cleaning the external surfaces more difficult.

SOLUTION
Pentair Südmo’s SensoTop Valve Position Feedback Unit was developed to meet this challenge. Using inductive magnetic coils the feedback fields for the individual valve positions are defined and programmed at the press of a button.

This provides significant time savings during assembly and commissioning. The closed design of the SensoTop eliminates entrapment risks and ensures optimum cleaning of the external surfaces even when valves are installed below process tanks. Due to the all-around 360° LED display the valve position is always visible from any angle.