This month marks the 10-year anniversary of James Cameron's historic dive to the Mariana Trench with the help of Opto 22 controls.

About this time 10 years ago, I got two emails about an hour apart. The first was from my wife saying my 16-year old son had fallen off his skateboard and taken a chunk out of his elbow. The second was from my son himself, asking if he could go back and find the missing bit rather than go to hospital to get stitches.

Today, we all have a bit of a laugh about it when we recall the story. But at the time, it was pretty stressful for each of us, mostly because I was away from home half way around the world.

In fact, I was a thousand miles out at sea working with the team that was preparing the Deepsea Challenge submersible that would end up taking movie director and deep ocean explorer James Cameron to the deepest point on the planet - the Mariana Trench.

Topics: Case studies, Videos, Deepsea Challenge

Small in size but loaded with data and connectivity options.

Hopefully, you caught our two previous related blog posts on the technical details of the groov EPIC Power Module, and the recent announcement of the new groov RIO EMU. 

In this blog post, I’ll focus on the unique features of the RIO EMU as a distributed power and energy monitoring device, plus so much more.

Topics: Energy management, Node-RED, MQTT, Sparkplug, groov RIO, power monitoring

Take a closer look at the new EPIC I/O  module (GRV-IVAPM-3) and get up to speed on how to install and configure it for your power monitoring applications.

Hopefully, you caught the recent blog post that announced our new 3-phase groov Power Monitoring module (GRV-IVAPM-3). In this next blog post, we’ll take a closer look at this module to help you get up to speed on how to install and configure it for your power monitoring applications.

Topics: Energy management, I/O, groov EPIC, power monitoring

Get a recap of the most searched topics and popular OptoForum posts of the year.

Let’s take a look back at 2021 through the eyes of the OptoForums. You remember last year's top 5, right?

For starters, we had almost 200 more people sign up this year over last. (Y-Axis below is the number of daily sign-ups).

Topics: Node-RED, MQTT, groov EPIC, groov RIO, OPC UA, OptoForum

Several highly requested features have been added to the latest firmware update for groov EPIC PR1 and PR2.

Even with the Covid pandemic lingering on, our mostly remote team of software engineers at Opto 22 have been hard at work. As a result, we have a groov EPIC firmware update that addresses a bunch of requested features, and like any software update, some bug fixes as well.

Simply known as version 3.3.1, you can freely download and take advantage of these improvements right away.

Let's take a look at what's new...

Topics: Updates, Firmware, Node-RED, CODESYS, groov EPIC, Ignition

Learn more about Time Proportional Output (TPO) and how you can use it on the groov RIO edge I/O module.

Do you need to control a digital output from an analog input?

If so, perhaps TPO is the solution you seek. Did you know that a groov RIO has 8 built-in TPO controllers and each can be configured for a different time period? We just need a little setup assistance in the form of a Node-RED flow. Before we get into that, let's talk more about just what TPO is.

Topics: Node-RED, groov EPIC, groov RIO, OptoForum, time proportional output

Some developer tips for successfully moving your project from home to the plant floor.

We know a lot of developers love to tinker and prototype projects on Raspberry Pi hardware. I do the same at my house with over 12 Raspberry Pi computers doing different things. It's such an affordable and fun platform with a huge community behind it... what's not to love? The challenge comes when it’s time to move your project from the house/office to the factory floor.

Topics: Node-RED, Raspberry Pi, groov EPIC, developer, groov RIO

There's a mix of totally new features and improvements to existing software in this new groov EPIC 3.2 firmware release

It just gets better and better. Every new release is just a blast to write about, and I'm here to tell you about all the cool stuff in the latest EPIC 3.2 firmware update.

Topics: Firmware, PAC Control, MQTT, groov EPIC, Ignition

See what Opto users were talking about as we look back at last year's Top 5 posts on the OptoForums.

There is no question that the Opto 22 forums are very much alive and kicking. The past 9 months of COVID lockdown did not even make the slightest dent in the activity level.

Topics: Firmware, Node-RED, groov View, groov EPIC, groov RIO, OptoForum

Hot on the heels of our recent groov EPIC 3.0 firmware release comes our groov RIO 3.0.1 firmware update.

There are at least 5 exciting additions in this RIO 3.0.1 package, but who's counting?

TL;DR: If you can't wait to get started, here’s the groov RIO Firmware download page to get your firmware update:
https://www.opto22.com/support/resources-tools/downloads/groov-rio-firmware

Topics: Firmware, PID loop control, Node-RED, MQTT, secure shell, groov RIO, LDAP