Our Story

Today Scanivalve Corporation is recognized as the world’s leading supplier of state-of -the art Ethernet-based intelligent pressure and temperature measuring instruments.

It all began with our founder, JC Pemberton, working at the Boeing wind tunnel in Seattle, Washington. His development of a mechanical scanning valve that multiplexed many pressure signals into one transducer revolutionized the data acquisition of pressure measurement. At the same time, electrical strain gauge transducers were being introduced for the first time. In 1955, JC left Boeing and founded Scanivalve Corporation. News of the Scanivalve product spread quickly throughout the wind tunnel industry. Scanivalve also found its way into the gas turbine and process control industry, expanding and establishing the Scanivalve name and reputation.

In the following years, besides pressure scanners, Scanivalve developed a comprehensive product line of more than 3000 items for facilitating easy pressure & pneumatic connections. These include small diameter plastic tubing and steel tubulations (.031 inch to .125 inch), as well as a wide selection of pneumatic manifolds and connectors.

In the 1970’s, Scanivalve developed the combination of calibration valving applied to individual miniature silicon sensors. The concept allowed computer correction of temperature errors inherent in these small silicon pressure sensors. Measurements of the individual sensors were now multiplexed electronically rather than mechanically, thus allowing faster sampling rates.They became known as ZOC pressure scanners (Zero, Operate & Calibrate).

In 1982 JC Pemberton sold the company to his sons, Addison and Jim. Shortly afterwards, the PC came onto the industrial scene. Scanivalve developed the Hyscan2000 pressure measurement system to stay in the forefront of technology. The Hyscan2000 was a PC-based pressure data acquisition system capable of sampling pressures up to 100,000 channels per second.

Scanivalve’s innovative engineering and sales team looked forward and saw Ethernet becoming one of the dominant communication busses for physical measurement. In 1995, Scanivalve relocated to a brand new manufacturing/headquarters facility located in Liberty Lake (Spokane), Washington. That same year we introduced our first Ethernet TCP/IP intelligent 16 channel pressure measurement system. The model DSA3000 series incorporated not only 16 pressure sensors but also an A/D, microprocessor, and auto calibration valving to allow for EU data output.

The model DTS3250 Digital Thermocouple Scanner was a natural spinoff with our technology. With this model, introduced in 2001, a user could measure both pressure and temperature quickly, accurately, and on the same LAN.

As the pace of technology has quickened, Scanivalve has kept pace. We recently introduced, in mid 2002, a miniature pressure measurement system that is low cost and easy to use. It communicates via USB and is called the RAD3200 Remote A/D.
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These successive new intelligent products have established Scanivalve as a highly innovative company solving industry problems. They have helped broaden the industry applications for Scanivalves beyond just aerospace to include the power industry, all turbomachinery testing, factory automation, and process control. Besides company offices in two hemispheres, we have a trained group of worldwide representatives who can assist you. We will continue in the future to fulfill our mission, to provide innovative state-of-the-art measurement solutions to our customers.