Older wind farms still produce clean energy, but many weren't built for modern monitoring and control.

This lack of remote visibility causes problems for utility companies and other owners, who must immediately respond when regulators call for changes in production.

That's because the electrical grid has to be a Goldilocks kind of system: not too much electricity, not too little. It has to be just right.

Faster. Ever faster.

There are around 180 devices on the submarine that the Opto hardware needed to communicate with.

Since every signal could not have its own physical wire, all the devices used a serial protocol. Each device had an address and a set of registers that could take commands or report their status back to the control program.

The interior of the pilot sphere remained at atmospheric pressure (around 14 psi), so there was no decompression requirement for the pilot. The outside of the sphere however took the full brunt of the mass of all the water above it. At the Mariana Trench, that was around 16,000 psi.

Serial data, power, and video camera feeds went in and out of the sub via very (very) special connectors called penetrator ports, electrical and fiber optic cables that had been cast in glass.

Challenger Deep:

On the 25th of March, 2015, it will be the third anniversary of filmmaker and explorer James Cameron's record-breaking solo dive on the Mariana Trench, only the third man in history to visit the deepest point on Planet Earth.

Perhaps you have already seen the movie, "James Cameron's Deepsea Challenger 3D". (Go figure - I took time off work and saw the opening session at a local theater). If not, you can pick up a copy from Amazon or iTunes.

Quick tease, follow this blog for a chance to win the movie or a special t-shirt.

As in past years, around this time my mind frequently goes back to the role that I and the entire team at Opto 22 played in helping put Jim in the pilot's seat of this amazing submarine Deepsea Challenger.

Join me in this and the next few blogs, as I touch on some of the highlights that stick in my mind of this epic adventure.

G'day Mate!

Since I'm going to be joining the world of blogging here at Opto 22, I thought I would kick things off by introducing myself.

Born and raised in Australia, I moved to the USA to take up working for Opto, rather than with Opto, in 2008.

For some 18 years I used Opto 22 hardware and software to automate a large hospital complex. Pretty much every aspect of the hospital is either controlled or monitored by some part of Opto 22 gear.

HVAC, chillers, boilers, backup generators, ice banks, refrigeration, nursery, operating suites, the list goes on and on.

The cool thing? I could control all of it from my office.... in the basement.....

Do you have legacy SNAP Ultimate or SNAP Ethernet I/O units on B-series mounting racks? Now you can upgrade these I/O units to SNAP PAC with the new SNAP-PAC-R1-B controller.

The SNAP-PAC-R1-B is exactly like a regular SNAP-PAC-R1 except that it has a blue connector on the bottom that fits on a B-series rack. That means you can:

Introducing F.W. Webb Company, the new authorized distributor for Opto 22 industrial automation hardware and software in the Northeast United States. F.W. Webb will now distribute Opto 22 products in all New England states plus New York. 

F.W. Webb is working closely with Martindale Associates, New England Representative for Opto 22. Martindale has sold the Opto 22 product line since the formation of the company in 1976.

Today's tip is about PAC Control error code -8626, Invalid Control Engine Name.

This error may appear if you've used one computer to develop your PAC Control strategy and then later use a different computer to modify it.

Here's why this error may occur and the easy way to recover from it.

Opto 22 exhibited at the ATX – Automation Technology West show this week in Anaheim. The show was one of five shows held at the Anaheim convention center, all centered around a general theme of manufacturing and packaging technologies. With that many shows under one roof it was a bit overwhelming to try and absorb all of the cool new tech being showed off. I've never seen so many robots under one roof.

People get excited about groov because they can monitor and control automation systems and equipment from their smartphones. 

And it's true, groov makes it simple to build your own mobile app for just the equipment and systems you want to see.