Ensure Your Data Loggers Are In-Check With Our Instrument Calibration Services

Calibration is critical wherever measurements need to be relied on when you make decisions that can have significant legal, educational, financial, social or health and safety outcomes. In such situations, managers and operators need confidence in the results that they monitor, record and ultimately control. 

As data loggers work in systems to record data that has been captured by sensors, the accuracy and precision of any system that uses a data logger will be affected by all devices operating in that system.

This article outlines how Instrument Choice instrument calibration services play a major role in helping educational institutions, governments, businesses and professionals ensure the accuracy of any measuring system that uses a datalogger.

What is the Problem?

Unfortunately, the accuracy of all measuring devices degrades over time. This can be caused by normal wear and tear, an electrical or mechanical shock, or a hazardous manufacturing environment (e.g. oils, metal chips etc.). Depending on the type of instrument and the environment in which it operates, this degradation may be rapid or incremental.

What Does Calibration Mean?

Instrument calibration services involve a two-step process. First step, the reading on one piece of equipment or system is compared with another piece of equipment that has been accurately calibrated and referenced to a known set of parameters – preferably to a national or international standard. Then, if the equipment being calibrated proves to be inaccurate, its output is then adjusted to match that of the standard. (Clearly, the equipment used as a reference should itself be directly traceable to equipment that is calibrated to a recognised National and/or International Standard).

The job of an instrument calibration service is to evaluate and adjust the precision and accuracy of measurement equipment to eliminate or reduce bias in an instrument's readings over a range, for all continuous values.

Why is Regular Calibration Important?

For legal, quality and management reasons there are two key perspectives you need from accessing an instrument calibration service:

1. Ensure your scientific instruments display values that meet product specifications; and

2. Understand the inaccuracies of displayed values at points of measurement that are critical to specific applications. Imagine an example of a food industry application. Understanding the inaccuracies of any instruments that provide temperature data for food storage at (say) freezing point, refrigerated cooling temperature and the heating temperature for hot food, is necessary to comply with the law. Having current calibration certificates for temperature meters and data loggers would provide the proof you needed for an auditor (or customers) that your equipment is fit for its task.

The Instrument Choice team thinks of regularly calibrating your scientific devices in the same way most of us don’t think twice about regularly servicing our cars. In a nutshell, if you’re work is professional in nature and mission-critical, if your operating environment a bit rough on your scientific equipment, should you work under tight tolerances, and/or if you need to comply with internal, national or international Quality Management standards, then regularly booking your equipment for instrument calibration service is essential.

Over time, any measurement system will become inaccurate- and you may be unaware of it! If your system hasn’t been calibrated your data may be deemed unreliable or non-compliant. Only by sending your equipment to an accredited instrument calibration service provider like Instrument Choice, and having it calibrated in a lab under controlled conditions, can you be assured of its accuracy. 

Standards and Testing Authorities

The National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia (NATA) is Australia’s accreditation body for laboratories, inspection bodies, calibration services, producers of certified reference materials and proficiency testing scheme providers throughout Australia. It is also Australia’s compliance monitoring authority for the OECD Principles of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP).

NATA accreditation provides the scientific community an assurance of the competence, impartiality and integrity of conformity assessment bodies. Instrument Choice partners with NATA accredited instrument calibration service providers. This authorisation provides our customers with confidence in the quality of our lab-based testing processes.

Categories of Calibration

NATA Certified Instrument Calibration Service: NATA certification is necessary where scientific instruments are to be used as references in the transfer of their measurement accuracy to other instruments. ANATAcertifiedcalibrationwillincludethefollowing, as required by 1S0170252005, to which all NATA laboratories are accredited:

1. Uncertainties of Measurement (UOM) - calculations which must be taken into account when the instrument is used to calibrate another instrument; and

2. Details of the reference instrument used, along with documented evidence to support an unbroken traceability chain of calibrations and associated measurement uncertainties.

Non-NATA Traceable Instrument Calibration Service: Virtually 95% of instrument calibration service requirements do not require the calibration of an instrument to then calibrate another device.For example,if(say) a pressure meter is only used to indicate pressure in a pipeline, the traceability of the instrument’s calibration needs only meet the Australian NationalStandards – not NATA certification. The Uncertainties of Measurement (UOM) calculations automatically provided with a NATA certified calibration would be superfluous.

If you have any measuring devices, including instruments that work in a data capture/recording system along with a data logger(s), it may pay you to contact a scientist to discuss your requirements, to ensure any recalibration of your instruments and recording systems will produce the accuracy, precision and compliance standards you need.

Browse Instrument Choice’s instrument calibration services here.

What is Uncertainty of Measurement?

Not to be confused with “error”, uncertainty of a measurement quantifies the trustworthiness of measurements produced by a measuring device. Whereas error is the difference between the measured value and the ‘true value’ of the thing being gauged, uncertainty is a quantification of the doubt associated with the measurement result. This requires two values to quantify the level of uncertainty. One is the width of the margin, or interval. The other is a confidence level, and states how sure we are that the ‘true value’ is within that margin.

Here’s an illustrative example: (Say) a thermometer measures the temperature of laboratory fridge as +5 degrees Celsius +/-0.5 degrees at the 95 percent confidence level. This tells you that the supplier is 95 percent sure that the temperature of the fridge is between 4.5 degrees and 5.5 degrees Celsius – if the thermometer is measuring accurately.

Uncertainty of Measurement in Systems Using A Data Logger

OK, now let’s imagine you’re responsible for maintaining a public swimming pool. In one scenario you may use a hand-held chlorine meter to quickly check your pool’s chemical balance – to make sure everything is working well or alternately, alert you to the need for further action. In this case, simply recalibrating your portable meter independently of any other devices makes perfect sense – it’s not in a system, right?

On the other hand, if you had a chlorine meter plugged into a measuring system that recorded the pool’s balance on an hourly basis, and if the measurement readings were recorded by a data logger that triggered the operation of automatic equipment, like filtration units or chlorinators, then it’s more than common-sense to regularly send off all the devices in your system to an instrument calibration service to ensure they are working accurately and precisely. If not, it could cost big bucks over time or, in the worst scenario, you could find yourself embroiled in a health and safety incident.

What’s the moral of the story? The accuracy of your results depends on both the accuracy of the data logger used and all the sensor instruments in the system. If one or more of these instruments is incorrectly calibrated, your results will be “on the nose” (pun intended).

Instrument Choice’s NATA Instrument Calibration Services

Instrument Choice offers a range of both NATA Certified and non-NATA Traceable instrument calibration services.

NATA Certification Instrument Calibration Services

Instrument Choice offers the following NATA instrument calibration services:

• 3 Point NATA Calibration Certificate for Temperature Meters
• 3 Point NATA Calibration Certificate for Humidity-RH Meters
• NATA Endorsed Calibration Certificate for Pharmaceutical Loggers at +2 degrees C, +5 degrees C and +8 degrees C [only]
• NATA Endorsed Calibration Certificate for IR Thermometers or Probe Thermometers at 18 degrees C, 3 degrees C and 70 degrees C [only]

Non-NATA Instrument Calibration Services

Instrument Choice offers the following non-NATA instrument calibration services:

• Instrument Choice Scientists Perform a Lab Check of Your Meter or Data Logger
• 2 Point Standard Traceable Calibration – Various Meters and/or Data Loggers
• 3 Point Standard Calibration for Humidity-RH Meters
• 3 Point Standard Calibration for Temperature Meters
• 3 Point Standard Traceable Calibration – Various Meters and/or Data Loggers
• 5 Point Standard Traceable Calibration – Various Meters and/or Data Loggers

Browse Instrument Choice’s instrument calibration services here.

How Quickly Can You Calibrate My Instruments?

For most instruments our standard (non-NATA) instrument calibration service offers a one-week turnaround and doesn’t require prior booking.

Contact us for our NATA certified instrument calibration service for expected turnaround times.

For more urgent calibrations contact us to discuss your requirements.

Calibrators

Where the nature of your operations requires your measuring devices more regular non-NATA calibration it may be more economical to acquire some calibrating equipment rather than outsourcing instrument calibration services. Instrument Choice offers sound and temperature calibrators.

Check out calibrators

Want to find out more about calibration? If you’re not sure what instrument calibration service you need, want some advice for your application or you could do with some help when booking a calibration contact an Instrument Choice scientist.