How do you get a variety of building systems and machinery to communicate with a central system controller, when they use different protocols?
Swedish system integrator Processcomponent AB had to solve this problem when they installed an energy monitoring system in a large apartment building in Gothenburg.
Topics: Energy management, Case studies, Remote monitoring, optonews, Integrators, Building management, Modbus, OptoNews 2015-11-18, M-Bus
You've heard us talk about how you can monitor and control your Modbus/TCP devices from a groov mobile operator interface on your tablet or smartphone.
But what if your Modbus device uses a serial link?
Topics: Energy management, Videos, groov, Remote monitoring, optonews, Integrators, Building management, OptoNews 2015-09-23
In the last OptoNews we talked about using date and time in PAC Control. (If you haven't seen the post, be sure to check out its links to useful resources.)
Meanwhile, Opto 22 customer Philip Spigelmire was busy writing a scheduling subroutine for his HVAC system. His subroutine handles:
Topics: Energy management, Tips, optonews, PACs, PAC Project, Building management, OptoNews 2015-09-09
Communicate with your smart HART® (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) devices with these two HART SNAP I/O modules—an input and an output.
HART is the most widely used digital communications protocol in process automation, so you'll find plenty of devices you can monitor and talk to using these modules.
Both I/O modules have channel-to-channel isolation and carry a lifetime warranty.
Topics: Energy management, Process control, optonews, I/O, HART, OptoNews 2015-08-26
Take a look at what Pioneer Energy is doing with waste flare gas from drilling sites.
With Pioneer's Mobile Alkane Gas Separator (MAGS) installed on site, oil producers can add up to 30% to their revenue stream—from waste that would otherwise be burned off and lost.
Topics: Energy management, Case studies, Videos, Process control, Remote monitoring, optonews, Oil & gas, OptoNews 2015-08-26
Do what when:
In last week’s blog we covered how to set the real time clock (RTC) in a PAC Controller with an accurate time server over the Internet using SNTP.Now that our controller knows exactly what time it is, how do we turn on that pump at 6:00 a.m. on the dot?
Like most aspects of programming, there are a few different ways to achieve the same result, so join me in this week’s blog while we look at one way to manage real-time scheduling.
Topics: Energy management, Process control, groov, Internet of Things, Tips, IoT, PACs, PAC Project
A warm (!) welcome to Albireo Energy, a new OptoPartner focused on intelligent buildings and energy efficiency.
Albireo Energy helps building owners and managers all over the U.S. to improve efficiency, optimize safety and up time, and reduce operational costs—while improving comfort for building tenants.
Topics: Energy management, optonews, Integrators, OptoNews 2015-08-12, Building management
It is amazing how sometimes similar applications can come back to back….Last week's blog came from a customer asking how to measure the main power grid frequency. And later the same week I had a totally different customer ask me about how he could display upper, lower and current value of the main electrical grid frequency in groov. What are the chances of that!!??
This customer wanted one gadget to display all three values. Why so dense? Because they only use groov on smart phones, no PCs or Tablets. He was polling the data from a bank of UPSes and so needed to display a lot of data. Screen real estate is prime on those devices. What can we do to help?
In this week's blog, we are going to have some adventures in Z-Order.
Topics: Energy management, groov, Internet of Things, Remote monitoring, Tips, IoT, PACs, OEM, I/O
Measure the main power grid frequency, he said. It will be fun, he said…. Actually, pretty sure I said something like, “it will be easy”... and I was mostly right, and best of all, it did turn out to be fun!
It seemed like both a reasonable and easy request. The requirements were to measure the mains power grid frequency to a resolution of 0.01 Hertz, and to do it every 125 milliseconds (roughly; it could be a max of 200 milliseconds, but not much longer).
Why? In this case, the chase is better than the catch. It's enough to say the customer had his reasons, and this blog is about the chase.
Topics: Energy management, Process control, groov, Internet of Things, Remote monitoring, Electronics, Tips, IoT, OEM, I/O
We rely on our smartphones so much now. It's hard to remember when I couldn't instantly:
So seriously, why would I want that convenience to stop with my personal life?
What I'd like is to also see status and data from equipment and systems I'm responsible for, and especially to be notified if something's out of line.
Topics: Energy management, Process control, Discrete control, groov, Internet of Things, Remote monitoring, optonews, OptoNews 2015-07-15