EWMA vs Low Pass Analog Smoothing

I'm working on an improvement project that has me a little confused.

Weighing product throughput and then adding other ingredients based on that weight.

What I am grappling with is why the original engineers went with Low Pass filtering. EWMA filtering results in a smoother analog.

We don't need to see small sudden changes in the weight, which would be detrimental to our process, particularly since these small changes in real world throughput are not at all track-able at the point in the process where the other ingredients are added.

Hmmm, when I read what I just wrote, I guess the answer is obvious, I should switch this input to EWMA filtering.

The simplified generic format for the EWMA filter is identical to the digital implementation of a first order low pass filter. I don't think you will see a significant difference in filtering either way.

Keith

I'll find out, they are both subroutines; I can change over by modifying a single JSR instruction.

It may not be necessary after all to change any code, I worked on the field device and found some parameters that were less than ideal.