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Greetings!
April may bring showers, but it also brings
Earth Day. The first Earth Day was in 1970
and the date (April 22nd) was chosen to
maximize participation by college students.
Many of the predictions of that first Earth
Day did not come to pass. If you are
interested you can see them here.
Even if they missed the mark a bit, saving a
little energy is never a bad thing.
So this month I am spotlighting a couple of
thermostats that go above and beyond.
John
| Stay Cool and In Control |
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Last month I was writing about very hot
plasma and its use in waste
destruction. This month is much cooler, as
in ice. Out of a mix of business and
pleasure (see the Personnel Section for the
details) was born a new product, Ice.IT.
Ice.IT is a fully programmable controller for
ice arenas. This device controls the brine
pump on a sheet of ice. To maintain the ice,
cold brine is pumped through tubes below the
ice. As the ice temperature rises, the pump
is run to cool the ice and maintain the surface.
In simple terms Ice.IT is a programmable
thermostat. So what makes it special?
- It measures ice surface temperature with
an infrared thermometer instead a sensor under
the ice. This maintains the ice surface
versus the underside of the ice.
- A detailed schedule of ice use can be
created to allow the ice temp to be raised
when not in use and set to different
temperatures based on the type of use.
- It is web enabled so a manager can use a
browser to create the schedule, check system
status, and view graphs.
- It gives visual freed back using graphs so a
manager can see the effects of changes in
schedule or temperature.
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| Patti Personnel |
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Name Randal Paquette
Title Director Business Development
Education :Eastern Michigan - Business
/ English
Years with Company 2
In his spare time Randy has been involved
in AAA youth hockey for over 20 years. When
not finding new Patti Engineering
clients, he is the Program Director for
COMPUWARE Hockey at the
COMPUWARE Arena in Plymouth, Michigan. There
many aspects in hockey dealing with kids and
their parents that are similar to work but,
one aspect that is of great interest in both
work & pleasure is Energy Management.
Talking at the office one day about ice
conditions to a group of Patti Engineers,
the discussion turned to the cost of
maintaining ice quality. They came up with a
solution
that makes both sides of
his life much better.
This spawned the development of the Patti
Ice.it Energy Management product. Randy,
along with Patti's partner Mr. Bob Bishop of
Serv-Ice Refrigeration are now marketing it to
area ice arenas. Ice.IT has saved
as much as 20,000 Kwh per month and enhanced
the ice quality that Randy's teams skate on. In
addition, he gets to share his new
product development knowledge with his
hockey buddies & facility operators.
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Gadget of the Month |
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I have a programmable thermostat at home, but
I never use it. Even with how much I love
technology, it is too painful to program
The ecobee
not only looks cool, but its programming
interface looks very easy to use. If you
hook it to the Internet, it will even adjust
its control based on local weather.
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