Difficult Telemetry location

OkiePC

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OkiePC
Join Date
Mar 2005
Location
ENE of Nowhere Oklahoma
Posts
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We have a customer using old unreliable leased lines to start and stop raw water pumps at a site 8.5 miles from the water plant. The system uses GE Fanuc 90-30 and Micro PLCs.

Our proposal includes updating the PLCs and panel meters to new controls and replacing the leased line communication with something we have not nailed down.

I have worked with a variety of radio systems over the past year but this case does not have line of sight, and cannot unless we can find property in the middle to install a repeater or put up 80 foot towers at both ends. The property in the middle is woods and it would take a lot of time to identify and secure property owners to lease for a repeater.

I have not done anything with Cellular modems for control. Can that work to start and stop water pumps? Would I be depending on some internet server somewhere to connect the two sites?

I have looked at a couple of different vendors literature and they all claim "remote monitoring and control", but I am skeptical and cautious. I looked at the Red Lion RAM 6000/9000 stuff on the internet, but it is (another) whole new area with which I have no experience.

Who has done this, what hardware have you used, and what are the gotchas?

It's very open ended, but I don't know what I don't know at this point.

Thanks,

Wellston path.jpg
 
OkiePC said:
We have a customer using old unreliable leased lines to start and stop raw water pumps at a site 8.5 miles from the water plant. The system uses GE Fanuc 90-30 and Micro PLCs.

Our proposal includes updating the PLCs and panel meters to new controls and replacing the leased line communication with something we have not nailed down.

I have worked with a variety of radio systems over the past year but this case does not have line of sight, and cannot unless we can find property in the middle to install a repeater or put up 80 foot towers at both ends. The property in the middle is woods and it would take a lot of time to identify and secure property owners to lease for a repeater.

I have not done anything with Cellular modems for control. Can that work to start and stop water pumps? Would I be depending on some internet server somewhere to connect the two sites?

I have looked at a couple of different vendors literature and they all claim "remote monitoring and control", but I am skeptical and cautious. I looked at the Red Lion RAM 6000/9000 stuff on the internet, but it is (another) whole new area with which I have no experience.

Who has done this, what hardware have you used, and what are the gotchas?

It's very open ended, but I don't know what I don't know at this point.

Thanks,
Click to expand...

I have never done anything like this but if I was I think my first call would be to somebody like Westermo or similar who specialise in remote comms and talking with their application guys to see what the options were.

http://www.westermo.com/web/web_en_idc_com.nsf/AllDocuments/B8C5717E6DDE1157C125788E0035E9CB
 
I can handle a little latency, but I am not sure satellite would be a good option and would be even less weather tolerant than cellular and require more precise setup.

I will have a Red Lion Graphite HMI at the main plant, and I know they make a module for cellular based communication, so perhaps that could be used to monitor and control a cellular RTU at the water source?

We are just brainstorming at this time, so I don't want to start talking to mfg. support just yet.
 
Hey Okie!

I have used these in the past, not really for active control but mostly monitoring.

I have a couple laying around here that you are more than welcome to borrow.
 
boneless said:
Hey Okie!

I have used these in the past, not really for active control but mostly monitoring.

I have a couple laying around here that you are more than welcome to borrow.
Click to expand...

Thanks! We may have to take you up on that. My partner is working on the path study as we speak, and it is his baby, but I will pass along any good ideas I can gather.
 
Is that remote site capable of running as a stand-alone if the communications are lost??
I have some remote sites talking to the main location over generic Ethernet using encrypted tunnels, but those remotes are capable of running themselves for days if necessary if the communications go down.
 
mendonsy said:
Is that remote site capable of running as a stand-alone if the communications are lost??
I have some remote sites talking to the main location over generic Ethernet using encrypted tunnels, but those remotes are capable of running themselves for days if necessary if the communications go down.
Click to expand...

If it loses communication for more than a minute or two, it needs to stop.

Initially the plans called for a Micrologix1100 at the remote site (pump station) so a heartbeat logic arrangement will probably provide the means to detect comms loss. The plans were based on 900MHz spread spectrum radios (Phoenix TWE) but if we can't secure a location for a repeater, that ain't gonna work here.
 
Can you license a VHF frequency? I'm using radio modems from Esteem. They are 30 watt VHF units. Unfortunately they no longer make them but they do have 5 watt units available. My application is remote pump control but the separation is only a couple of miles with no line of sight. These units have worked flawlessly for years now.

Esteem advertises 15 miles line of sight for their 4 and 5 watt licensed units. You might want to give them a call. They were very helpful when I was setting this system up.http://www.esteem.com/
 
danny.michael said:
Can you license a VHF frequency?
Click to expand...

Maybe. We have quite a few customers with licensed UHF frequencies. Some of them work quite well at long distances but this big tree covered hill in the middle might be tough to bounce over even for VHF. I am too green with this stuff to have a feel for what will work.
 
I did a boatload of licensed VHF in the hills of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Based on the pic you attached, it shouldn't be too big of a deal to get reliable comms. I've used Esteem with pretty good success, but we mostly used Calamp. Their Viper and Guardian radios push up to 10 watts.
 
OkiePC said:
I have not done anything with Cellular modems for control. Can that work to start and stop water pumps? Would I be depending on some internet server somewhere to connect the two sites?

I have looked at a couple of different vendors literature and they all claim "remote monitoring and control", but I am skeptical and cautious. I looked at the Red Lion RAM 6000/9000 stuff on the internet, but it is (another) whole new area with which I have no experience.
Click to expand...

In my experience, using cell modems at the small scale (less than 10 devices) is tricky at best. The cell company networks tend to block mobile to mobile data, so you can't typically buy standard SIM cards for industrial applications. For point to point connections you need special data plans with static IP addresses and special network treatment, and I've heard that it typically isn't worth the ATT sales guys time to discuss the data plans need unless its for a lot of plans.

At a minimum, you would be depending on the cell provider's network. You CAN get cell modems that are capable of point to point VPN connections (well, point to point via whatever route through the cell provider), but most of them are cloud based systems with rendezvous servers.
 
mk42 said:
...
At a minimum, you would be depending on the cell provider's network. You CAN get cell modems that are capable of point to point VPN connections (well, point to point via whatever route through the cell provider), but most of them are cloud based systems with rendezvous servers.
Click to expand...

Depending on the cell provider network is one thing, but depending on a server somewhere in the "cloud" is something we'd want to avoid if possible.

The Micro830 based SMS module is being discontinued but it did look like a pretty good idea. It would still depend on the cell provider network.

The VHF radio option might be worth consideration. We have a service location in the same city as our shop that uses GE MDS VHF radios. I have not worked with them yet, but the customer says they are trouble free.

For a small FCC fee that gets paid once, we could own the whole shooting match with radios.

My partner is planning this job with the Phoenix (unlicensed 900 MHz) T.W.E. modems including a repeater. I am just looking for a contingency if he finds it difficult or impossible to secure a location for that repeater.
 
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