thingstodo
Member
I installed a remote system - a PLC 5/25 - with a KF2 on a telephone company leased-line at 19,200 baud to comunicate with a remote pipeline station many years ago. They are looking to upgrade, since the PLC5 is end-of-life.
The PLC5/80 at the tank farm was changed out a while ago. It's running an 1756-L75 with a couple of racks of I/O on ethernet, except for one DH/RIO card that still has some 1771 I/O and of course 1 spare channel for DH+
Since the KF2 is also end-of-life ... there was some experimenting with serial interface replacements. They want to get rid of the rental on the leased-line (which was $450 per month back in the day and is now up to $2000 per month!) I think they went with a Prosoft module to replace the KF2.
It's only 3 miles from the tank farm to the remote station. But there is a land-fill between, and the company does not own any other land around there. They have tried several vendor's unlicensed radios in 900 Mhz, 2.4 Ghz, and 5 Ghz. So far two of them got signal, but none is reliable enough to keep a 1 second heartbeat running for 2 days in a row. They need data at 1 second to detect the transition between batches of gas and diesel on the pipeline.
1- Cell coverage is so over-subscribed that the cell company won't sell them data service in that area. I think the cell company is missing out on some cash there .. but that's my opinion.
2 - Installing last-mile radio hardware on the cell tower is a long and drawn-out process. They would like a solution that can be implemented this year.
Another thing - this is not my project. I was talking to the lead engineer (who works at another company) and he vented about the problems. He didn't realize that I installed the original system. So I am an interested bystander on this one.
Surely there is a simple solution to this one that I can't think of !
The PLC5/80 at the tank farm was changed out a while ago. It's running an 1756-L75 with a couple of racks of I/O on ethernet, except for one DH/RIO card that still has some 1771 I/O and of course 1 spare channel for DH+
Since the KF2 is also end-of-life ... there was some experimenting with serial interface replacements. They want to get rid of the rental on the leased-line (which was $450 per month back in the day and is now up to $2000 per month!) I think they went with a Prosoft module to replace the KF2.
It's only 3 miles from the tank farm to the remote station. But there is a land-fill between, and the company does not own any other land around there. They have tried several vendor's unlicensed radios in 900 Mhz, 2.4 Ghz, and 5 Ghz. So far two of them got signal, but none is reliable enough to keep a 1 second heartbeat running for 2 days in a row. They need data at 1 second to detect the transition between batches of gas and diesel on the pipeline.
1- Cell coverage is so over-subscribed that the cell company won't sell them data service in that area. I think the cell company is missing out on some cash there .. but that's my opinion.
2 - Installing last-mile radio hardware on the cell tower is a long and drawn-out process. They would like a solution that can be implemented this year.
Another thing - this is not my project. I was talking to the lead engineer (who works at another company) and he vented about the problems. He didn't realize that I installed the original system. So I am an interested bystander on this one.
Surely there is a simple solution to this one that I can't think of !