Raspberry Pi in Industrial Data Logging Application

lesmar96

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Good Day,
Though I have nearly 0 experience with the raspberry pi, I hear alot and read alot about it and its functionality.

I know this has been discussed and debated before. Would you feel comfortable using one in a industrial application? I am sure the answers will depend on what we are actually doing with it. We are not planning to control a system with it, simply datalogging. We plan to run a Node-Red flow that will poll the inputs and log data to a Mongo database.

Would this be a fair application to try out a Pi?

Has any one used these? I suppose the "industrial" part of it is mostly the enclosure? https://revolution.kunbus.com/revolution-pi-series/
 
The cost is so low, there's little risk in trying.

In my shop, we've got a project that used a few dozen Raspberry Pi 3B+ units. Most are in their factory clear plastic cases, some on DIN-rail mounts with serial HATs, some on "DIN-r-Plate" mounts. My headless Node-Red instance at home runs on a NanoPi Zero in its aluminum box; it's been burbling along for a couple of months.

The Kunbus hardware has a good power supply, and peripherals with decent temperature and vibration ratings with a Raspberry Pi Compute Module mounted inside. For permanent installations, that's what I would choose. I've pitched one to a customer as "you get the consumer version in the prototype shop for free, but a Kunbus unit when we actually install it and run it 24/7".
 
Kunbus has both CE and UL approval. That does not merely cover the eclosure.
I havent used or investigated Kunbus before, but you can try to find the EC Declaration of Conformity on their website. This document is required for them to be able to stick the CE label on the product and must be publicly accessible. On the EC Declaration of Conformity must be stated if it conforms to EMC standards, anc crucially which standards. If the EMC standards are for "industrial" environment, then you can use it in an industrial application, otherwise not.
 
I have been planning a Raspberry Pi running Zabbix to collect data on the Automation network on stie. I had one at home (running from USB, not SD) and it worked nicely as a test both for Zabbix (not a very long test) and to collect data from a couple of sensors I deployed.

For data gathering I think it should be fine.
 
Good Day,
Though I have nearly 0 experience with the raspberry pi, I hear alot and read alot about it and its functionality.

I know this has been discussed and debated before. Would you feel comfortable using one in a industrial application? I am sure the answers will depend on what we are actually doing with it. We are not planning to control a system with it, simply datalogging. We plan to run a Node-Red flow that will poll the inputs and log data to a Mongo database.

Would this be a fair application to try out a Pi?

Has any one used these? I suppose the "industrial" part of it is mostly the enclosure? https://revolution.kunbus.com/revolution-pi-series/

Raspberry PI is cheap and powerful for sure.

If the data gathering is for 'info' or 'visualization' then go ahead and try it

If the data is historized and then fed to 'train' an expert system ... I would expect the data to be checked/vetted before being used for training. So it's likely OK.

If the data is fed 'live' a virtual instrument or simulation, I'd investigate additional layers to verify the data is active. You don't want to have your process go weird because something has stopped communicating and the data has 'flat-lined'. I know that you are not planning to do this ... but everyone has MBAs on staff that treat all data as VETTED and CONFIRMED data ... if it shows up in a spreadsheet it MUST be TRUE!
 
Raspberry PI is cheap and powerful for sure.

If the data gathering is for 'info' or 'visualization' then go ahead and try it

If the data is historized and then fed to 'train' an expert system ... I would expect the data to be checked/vetted before being used for training. So it's likely OK.

If the data is fed 'live' a virtual instrument or simulation, I'd investigate additional layers to verify the data is active. You don't want to have your process go weird because something has stopped communicating and the data has 'flat-lined'. I know that you are not planning to do this ... but everyone has MBAs on staff that treat all data as VETTED and CONFIRMED data ... if it shows up in a spreadsheet it MUST be TRUE!

Very good advice.

I had a phone conversation with a Kunbus dealer here in America yesterday and I was favorably impressed.
 
Thanks for posting that link ! It's really neat to see that kind of detail about the hardware and how the Compute Module is connected to other parts.
 
I use pi's regularly for capturing logged data from an HMI over FTP, encrypt it, auto-upload to cloud.

There are many serial interfaces you can use on the GPIO pins to gather data with.

Heck, use some of the GPIO pins to perform functions that interact with your process!

The best advice I can give for system longevity is:

>Use a very good quality MicroSD card like from a known brand name.
>Use a much larger MicroSD than you need so it can "wear level" over time.
>Expand the filesystem in raspi-config
>DO NOT USE THE DEFAULT PASSWORD
>Study up on how to lower read/write cycles by logging to RAM: https://hackaday.com/2019/04/08/give-your-raspberry-pi-sd-card-a-break-log-to-ram/
>Make an image of the MicroSD whenever you do maintenance, these cards do fail over time.
>Autoatically (cron scheduler) copy mission critical data to a thumb drive or external data store as a backup.
>Utilize an Uninterruptible Power Supply whenever possible.

You can do pretty neat things with these little machines!
 
I use pi's regularly for capturing logged data from an HMI over FTP, encrypt it, auto-upload to cloud.

There are many serial interfaces you can use on the GPIO pins to gather data with.

, use some of the GPIO pins to perform functions that interact with your process!

The best advice I can give for system longevity is:

>Use a very good quality MicroSD card like from a known brand name.
>Use a much larger MicroSD than you need so it can "wear level" over time.
>Expand the filesystem in raspi-config
>DO NOT USE THE DEFAULT PASSWORD
>Study up on how to lower read/write cycles by logging to RAM: https://hackaday.com/2019/04/08/give-your-raspberry-pi-sd-card-a-break-log-to-ram/
>Make an image of the MicroSD whenever you do maintenance, these cards do fail over time.
>Autoatically (cron scheduler) copy mission critical data to a thumb drive or external data store as a backup.
>Utilize an Uninterruptible Power Supply whenever possible.

You can do pretty neat things with these little machines!

thanks for that advice. It sounds like you have some experience!
 

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