
6B13 / 6B13HV
Rev. 0 | Page 2 of 8
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The 6B13 and 6B13HV are single-channel isolated signal-
conditioning modules which accept outputs from platinum,
nickel and copper RTD sensors. Unlike conventional signal
conditioners, the 6B13 and 6B13HV are complete
microcomputer-based data acquisition systems. A major
advantage of the on-board microcontroller is its ability to be
remotely reconfigured for various sensor types and input
ranges.
Software Configuration – The 6B13 and 6B13HV linearize
100 platinum RTDs (alphas of 0.00385 and 0.003916), 120
nickel RTDs and 10 copper RTDs. Software is used to
configure the 6B13 and 6B13HV modules for address, input
range, baud rate, data format, checksum status and integration
time. All programmable parameters are stored in the nonvolatile
memory of the module.
RTD sensor excitation current of 250 uA (2.25 mA for copper
RTDs) is supplied by a tracking pair of current sources. The
resulting analog input signal is conditioned and scaled by a
programmable-gain amplifier and digitized by a 16-bit
integrating converter under microprocessor control. The
digitized value is passed serially across a magnetically isolated
barrier (1500 V rms – Model 6B12; 2500 V rms – Model
6B13HV) and clocked in by a custom controller chip. The on-
board microprocessor then converts the data into engineering
units or as a percentage of full scale, as determined by the
channel parameters. In between conversions, the
microprocessor auto zeros the offset and gain by monitoring the
on-board temperature and compensating for reference drift.
The 6B13 and 6B13HV use compensation factors to ensure the
highest accuracy possible.
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Figure 2