Latest News

An NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) magnetometer provides a direct high accuracy measurement of magnetic flux density based on the gyromagnetic ratio of protons.

Nuclear magnetic resonance magnetometers are the gold standard for magnetic field measurement. They exploit a precisely-known property of atmomic nuclei and the ability to measure frequency also with high precision and thus provide extraordinary accuracy. Pyramid has added a PT2026 magnetometer supplied by world-leaders Metrolab SA to provide a convenient in-house calibration capability of its range of precision Hall probes.

The magnets and power supplies used for production calibration at Pyramid were not originally designed with the requirements of NMR in mind, but with valuable assistance from Metrolab and the supply of customised NMR probes, a robust calibration system has been created.

PTC USA moves to larger office

We are announcing the relocation of our primary US offices to Waltham, MA. The new location is approximately 2 miles from our current location in Lexington. The new space suites our growing engineering, manufacturing, and office needs.

Pyramid Technical Consultants, Inc.
135 Beaver Street
Suite 102
Waltham, MA 02452 USA
T: +1 781-402-1700
F: +1 781-402-1750

PTC Europe moves to larger premises

The new offices in a historic building near the center of Henfield gives us better space to support our customers in Europe. The extra space improves our engineering development, customer support, service and calibration capability.

We now have the space and facilities to offer training on the the full range of Pyramid products. The office is only a minute's walk from the many attractions of downtown Henfield.

Pyramid Technical Consultants Europe, Ltd
First Floor Office, The Barn
Golden Square
Henfield BN5 9DP UK
T: +44 1273 492002

We all look forward to welcoming visitors when the world returns to normality.

Serial ASCII console

RS-232 is a very mature interface standard, but is still very widely used. Many Pyramid products support RS-232 as well as their primary Ethernet or fiber-optic interfaces. Even if it is not used for primary communication purposes, the RS-232 interface can be used for diagnostic and setup purposes such as interrogating or setting a network address, or reading the firmware version.

Pyramid has created a simple, free to use on-line serial ASCII communication console that can be used with Pyramid products. The console will automatically identify any active COM ports on the host computer and presents them as connection options.

Once connected, you can send serial strings and see the response of the connected device. Every response is timestamped, and you can repeat command strings by simply clicking on a prior entry. You can set the console to repeat the same command at timed intervals, and send the whole history to a csv file.

Large installations such as particle accelerators depend on accurately controlled magnetic fields in many locations. The fields need to be measured with high precision and in some case must be controlled to achieve an exact target value. The field being measured may be in a radiation environment.

The new T1 Hall probe system is a precise and compact device designed for such requirements. The HP-1 active probe has built-in temperature sensing and gain control and is designed to measure DC and AC fields up to 2.8 T. The NMR-traceable calibration is stored with the probe. The matching T1 control unit connects via Ethernet to your local area network and can be controlled through a web browser interface. It also provides an analog voltage monitor output that maps the field reading so that it can be tracked using a voltmeter or oscilloscope.

An optional field control servo feature allows the T1 to provide field stabilisation to target values sent via Ethernet, using the analog output voltage to control a power supply.

Pyramid continues to advance the performance and reliability of its ionization chamber products. Pyramid engineer Nick Dart, working in the ionization chamber assembly and test lab, has provided details of a new build of the flash therapy optimized IC64-6 chamber that demonstrates advances in gold coating, laser patterning and connection methods. The new chamber is showing good performance and stability in in-house testing and will be demonstrated on a proton system at an early opportunity.

The new gold electrodes provide:

• More precise and very consistent pattern writing
• Improved long term connection reliability
• Excellent high voltage stability

Following tests on the IC64-6, the new methods will be implemented on other chambers including the larger area IC128-25 models.