Do you monitor temperatures?

A lot of control engineers do, especially in fields like water treatment, refrigeration, thermoforming, refining, food processing, and energy or building management.

There are a variety of temperature sensors on the market—ICTDs, thermocouples, RTDs, thermistors, infrared sensors. Accuracy, cost, wiring complexity, and environmental conditions are some of the factors that determine which one is best for your application.

Topics: Energy management, Process control, Food & beverage, Water & wastewater, Machine builder, optonews, OEM, Integrators, OptoNews 2015-06-17

Seen from space, light from waste flare gas in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota is nearly as bright as all the lights from the city of Chicago. 

That's a lot of energy going up in smoke.

That's a waste of resources, says Pioneer Energy President Dr. Robert Zubrin. 

Topics: Case studies, Videos, Process control, Remote monitoring, optonews, PACs, OptoNews 2015-06-17

Our tech tip this week comes from Philip in the OptoForum, who shared his PAC Control subroutine code for determining the time the sun rises and sets at a specific latitude. 

You could use HTTP requests over the Internet to get this data (discussed earlier in the same thread). But with this OptoScript code you don't need an Internet connection.

Topics: Tips, optonews, PACs, OptoNews 2015-06-17

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Two keys for secure communications:

What are SSL/TLS and HTTPS? You may have heard them being used on the Internet, and you have more than likely used them when logging into your bank, but what are they?

Is there anything you need to do to use these secure protocols?

What goes on "behind the curtain" in your web browser when you use them?

In this week's blog we are going to continue the theme of network security by taking a close look at SSL/TLS and HTTPS.

Topics: Discrete control, groov, Internet of Things, Remote monitoring, Electronics, Tips, IoT, Machine builder, Integrators, Networking

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Mobile device use - Russian Roulette or the new normal?

Many of us have a either a smartphone or tablet, and some of us have both. We use them for all sorts of tasks every day. Are we simply pushing our luck? Are we rolling the dice every time we use them? Or can we use them in a secure manner that helps us be more productive and thus have a higher quality of life?

This week's blog is going to look at some pros and cons of the humble mobile device and what steps we can take to even out the odds.

Topics: groov, Internet of Things, Remote monitoring, Electronics, Tips, IoT, Networking

Get the latest groov View app for iOS and Android operating systems.

New in this release: Support for Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and verification of a valid SSL certificate on the groov Box or groov Server.

Topics: groov, Updates, Machine builder, optonews, OptoNews 2015-06-03

Have you have been waiting for this one?

Now you can create a custom application to read from and write to tags in a PAC Control strategy running on any of our SNAP PAC programmable automation controllers:

• the standalone PAC S-series (shown at right)
• the rack-mounted PAC R-series
• the software-based SoftPAC

That means you can access tags in the strategy like integer, float, and string variables and tables, as well as analog and discrete input and output points. 

Topics: optonews, PACs, New products, Integrators, OptoNews 2015-06-03

Our last OptoNews introduced the new features in groov 3, just released, including:

• Events and notifications, so you can log key events in your system and even send email or text notifications that come right to your phone
• Data simulator tags, so you can try out gadgets or demonstrate groov without having to connect to real equipment

Now see the webinar!

Topics: Webinars, groov, Updates, optonews, OptoNews 2015-06-03

• What if your hard drive fails while you're developing a PAC Control strategy?
• What if you need to update an old strategy built by someone else?
• What if ..?

That's when you're really glad you archived your strategy.

Topics: Tips, optonews, PACs, OptoNews 2015-06-03