The control valve circuit used to date on many poppet orifice pulsers utilized in the Measurement While Drilling industry consists of a small poppet and orifice arrangement. This allowed a low power supply draw and a simple system design. There were several negatives to this arrangement. The first was the small dimensions inherent with this design criterion.
A stepper motor powered rotary valve solves both of these issues. It allows a much larger flow path through its elements allowing improved tolerance to debris in the drilling fluid. As well its speed is much greater than the solenoid powered poppet orifice control valve. The benefits go further. The stepper motor powered rotary valve has much more flexibility than the “on- pause –off – pause” pattern limit of a linear poppet orifice valve. The stepper motor allows precise positioning, direction change, as well as rotational speed variations to alter the movement and resulting reaction of the main poppet orifice pulse generation valve. In effect many of the pulse patterns generated by a rotary main valve pulser can be emulated with the linear poppet orifice style valve as well as some that can not.
