FLOBOSS S600+ integral floating-point unit

Description

Product Overview

FloBoss S600+ is a panel-mounted flow computer built for fiscal measurement — the point in a pipeline or terminal where a number becomes money. It performs the full metering calculation chain: pulse or analog acquisition from the primary element, live density, pressure and temperature correction, conversion to standard or base conditions, and the accumulation of totals that will later appear on a custody transfer ticket. It is designed for a control room panel, not for a field enclosure, and it assumes the instruments around it are intelligent: ultrasonic meters, Coriolis meters, gas chromatographs, densitometers and provers all connect to it directly.

The platform belongs to Emerson’s FloBoss family, and the distinguishing letter here is the plus sign. FloBoss S600+ is the same instrument as the long-serving S600 in almost every physical respect — same case, same front panel, same I/O module, same prover module, same HART module — with one component changed: the CPU module. That module brings a ColdFire MPC8313 running at 333 MHz with a hardware floating-point unit, 256 MB of flash, a Linux operating system in place of the earlier VxWorks, two Ethernet ports on the CPU instead of one on the base unit plus an optional second, and a set of serial ports that reach 57,600 bps where the S600 stopped at 38,400.

That single-module change is what makes the product interesting to an installed base rather than only to new projects. A metering station that already holds an S600 does not need to be re-cut, re-wired or re-approved: the CPU module is exchanged, the saved configuration is downloaded, and the station returns to service with the faster platform underneath. The calculation code itself is the field-proven code from the S600, which is why the metrology approvals carry across rather than being re-earned.

Technical Specifications

表格

FLOBOSS S600+

Key Features and Advantages

The plus sign is a CPU, and that changes the upgrade arithmetic

A station owner facing a slow or unsupported does not have to replace a flow computer. FloBoss + is delivered as a CPU module that drops into the existing four-slot case, and the meter runs, prover wiring, HART loops and panel cutout all stay as they are. The saving is not only the hardware: the metrology approval, the wiring schedule, the loop drawings and the operator’s familiarity with the display all survive the change. This is the difference between a capital project and a maintenance activity.

The P190 trap

The could be given a second Ethernet port by fitting an optional P190 module. On FloBoss + that module is not compatible, because the second port now lives on the CPU itself — which is an improvement, since it frees a slot for I/O, HART or prover instead of consuming one for communications. It also means a spare-parts list written for an is wrong for an +: the P190 should be removed rather than carried forward.

Two ports that quietly disappeared

The carried a boot port on the rear of the CPU module and an expansion port on the backplane that supported remote I/O. Both are gone on FloBoss +; the boot port survives only on the front panel. Any architecture that distributed I/O across the backplane connector needs to be re-examined before a CPU swap is ordered, not after the cabinet is open.

Fiscal integrity is structural, not procedural

Every metering calculation in FloBoss + runs in 64-bit double precision, and cumulative totals are written to three separate memory locations in tri-reg format so that a single memory fault cannot silently alter a custody transfer figure. The historian holds roughly 333 days of hourly, daily, weekly and monthly reports for a ten-stream application, plus 50,000 events and 50,000 alarms, and supports FLOWCAL CFX export — which is what an auditor asks for, months after the fact.

Ten streams without a second box

The standard configuration covers two dual-pulse streams and a header. Two further modules take that to six dual-pulse or ten single-pulse streams with two headers, and a single FloBoss + can run a liquid station and a gas station at the same time. For a terminal loading LPG, crude and refined product through adjacent bays, that removes a whole tier of hardware and the integration work between two computers.

It will not run until it is configured

A replacement FloBoss + arrives without an application. The unit stores up to twenty user configurations, and the correct sequence is to load the saved configuration from Config600 before expecting anything from the front panel — a module that displays but measures nothing is usually an unconfigured module, not a failed one.

Applications

Custody transfer metering on crude oil and refined product pipelines is the core case: FloBoss + takes turbine, positive displacement, ultrasonic or Coriolis inputs, applies API 2540 table corrections for temperature and pressure, and produces the ticket totals a shipper and a receiver settle against.

Gas transmission and city-gate stations apply it with orifice, ultrasonic or V-Cone elements under AGA 3, AGA 7, AGA 8 and ISO 5167, with a gas chromatograph on a serial port supplying composition and the calculated energy value.

LPG and NGL loading terminals use the multi-station capability, where one computer meters several product grades into road or rail tankers and keeps batch totals separate from stream totals.

Meter proving is handled by the P154 prover module — compact, unidirectional, bidirectional, master meter and dual-chronometry provers, up to four sphere switches, and two provers from one controller — which keeps proving and fiscal measurement in the same approved device rather than in a separate skid computer.

Refinery and terminal allocation schemes use FloBoss + as the measurement node feeding a SCADA or DCS supervisory system over Modbus TCP, with the embedded web server giving the metering engineer remote access to reports and diagnostics without a site visit.

Related Products

FloBoss — the predecessor flow computer; same case, panel, I/O and prover modules, VxWorks CPU, 16 MB DRAM and up to 38,400 bps serial. FloBoss + CPU module (P152) — the field upgrade path, exchanged on its own to convert an into an +. P144 I/O module — the standard analog and digital I/O card, one supplied with every unit, up to three in the case. P148 Pulse Mezzanine — pulse input daughterboard mounted on a P144 or P154, taking no separate slot. P154 Prover module — prover interface supporting compact, uni/bidirectional, master meter and dual-chronometry methods. P188 HART module — 12-channel HART interface, point-to-point or multidrop, up to 50 transmitters, two modules per unit. P190 Ethernet module — the ‘s optional second Ethernet port; explicitly not compatible with the +, which has both ports on the CPU. Config600 Lite / Lite+ / Pro — the configuration tool suite; version 3.0 or later is required for the +, and existing configurations from 1.4 onward remain editable. IPL600 — the standalone configuration and firmware transfer utility, included in Config600 as Config Transfer. FloBoss + display-keypad assembly — the removable front panel with the 128 × 64 LCD and 29-key keypad.

Installation and Maintenance

Before installation: establish whether the task is a new panel build or a CPU upgrade, because they are not the same job. For a new build, the cutout is 66 × 150 mm, the case needs 300 mm of clearance behind it for module access, and adjacent units should sit on a 110 mm pitch to leave the air gap. For an upgrade, save the running configuration first, isolate the controller, confirm that no P190 module is present, confirm that nothing depends on the backplane expansion port, then exchange the CPU module and reload the configuration through the front-panel port or IPL600.

Maintenance practice: treat the configuration as the asset it is — keep an exported copy off the unit, because a FloBoss + without its configuration is a display and a keypad. The memory backup cell is a quick-release 3.4 V lithium, replaceable without soldering, with roughly five to seven years of life while the unit is powered and closer to eighteen months when it is not, so a decommissioned spare should be checked before it is trusted. Verify the analog calibration interval against the application’s uncertainty budget rather than the calendar, and re-run a proving sequence after any module change that touches pulse acquisition, since a metering figure that shifts after maintenance is far more expensive to explain than the maintenance itself.

Warranty and Quality

Every FloBoss + is supplied as the configured hardware set — CPU module, at least one P144 I/O module with P148 pulse mezzanine, case and display-keypad — with the module complement confirmed against the application before dispatch, so a buyer is not left with a metering computer missing the prover or HART card the project assumed. Units are checked for boot behaviour, Ethernet and serial port function, front-panel display and keypad response, and memory backup cell condition, and carry a 12-month repair, replacement or refund commitment. Technical support covers the -to-+ upgrade sequence, the P190 incompatibility, the removed boot and expansion ports, Config600 version and activation requirements, metrology approval scope for MID gas and liquid applications, and configuration recovery for a unit that arrives without its application.