SmartTrak 50 vs SmartTrak 100: Which Mass Flow Controller is Right for Your Application?

We would like to fill you in a little bit and give you some guidance on purchasing our meters and our controllers in our scientific line. We have two, the SmartTrak 100 and the SmartTrak 50. And there's a little difference between the two, and it might be worth it for you to consider some of these differences before you make a purchase.

If you're in a laboratory environment, or if you are at a university, and you need the greatest flexibility in terms of different gasses you're going to use, and how to change ranges, cabling, local touch pad and all that, you'd want to go with the SmartTrak 100. SmartTrak 100 comes with 10 pre-programmed gasses, either our standard list or ones of your choice. It also has a really nice local touch pad. So, you can choose the gas you want. You can command a set point on a controller. You can tell our controller to purge, in other words, go wide open. You can also select the range of your gas. And so, it's really flexible for a lab environment.

We do offer an additional flexibility of what we call a Compod. This is another device that's bolted to the front of the meter, and provides really powerful computer control. You can do batch control, get totalization of your flow over time and control pressure in a vessel. You can also bring pressure inputs into this controller. You can mix gasses and blend gasses. You can do ratio control, and you can set alarms. So, this is a very flexible device.

Or if you're into more economical flow, and you know exactly your application, and it's not going to change over time, you could purchase the SmartTrak 50. Very high quality, but a little bit less in terms of features. You'll notice there's no touch pad on the front. So you have to bring in either an analog signal or a computer signal to control this device. Also, you're limited to the single gas you had it calibrated for and that single range.

This is available with an aluminum body to save even more money. I have had some university students and professors contact me who had purchased the SmartTrak 50. It just wasn't quite flexible enough for them. They weren't sure how to cable it. They weren't sure how to change gasses. They just needed more flexibility, and we were able to move them into the SmartTrak 100. If you can get by with a single application and a single gas, no local touch pad, you can go with the SmartTrak 50.

If you have any questions, please contact Sierra Instruments’ sales or tech support.