Newsletter December 2006

Seasons Greetings and welcome to the Christmas edition of Abbey News.  This year has been one of consolidating our work on the Swampfox and extending its reach beyond New Zealand's shores to the US market, where we're pleased to report a  recent significant system sale for Swampfox.

We're also particularly excited with the ongoing development and imminent release of Aspex,  our new graphics user interface software.  This product looks very smart and has a host of new features not in TM.   For some time we’ve recognised that there was a market for something better than TM but not at the level of complexity of a full process control HMI.  However it hasn’t been until this year that we’ve had the resources to start the project.

Powerlink RTU is also undergoing a substantial upgrade with a new processor and interface architecture for the Communications Module.  Look for a release early in the new year.  It will also have a new name when it's relaunched, but I'm not saying what that is just yet.  The search for a name has been a project for over a year and during the process we discovered the name Aspex for our new software.  Good news though for Powerlink RTU customers - the new Communicator will be compatible with the existing Powerlink I/O module range and a significant performance improvement can be obtained by upgrading just the one RTU module.

Another change you may notice is to our website www.abbey.co.nz .   The site has been reformatted for 1024x768 displays and as a result is much easier to read.

With all of this new development work taking place it's with a little sadness that we announce the discontinuation of the Microlink/Minilink product range.  These two products were developed in 1992/93 with the first product shipping Feb 1993, ~14 years. (My new phone has a 6-8 month expected product life!)  It's been increasingly difficult to source key components for both products and with the rollout of Swampfox, Microlink sales have slowed.  So it's time to farewell an old friend.    

We are building our last run of 100 Microlinks now and these should last 6 to 9 months depending on demand.  With thousands installed in New Zealand and the USA, Abbey Systems is committed to continued service for the product range for the foreseeable future.    

Lester, Tim, Barry and the staff of Abbey Systems wish to thank all of our customers for their business over the last year and wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

Seasons Greetings

Steve Dorrington

Sales & Marketing Manager

Abbey Systems News

Aspex Software 

Lester Abbey & Steve Dorrington are currently touring the country giving presentations of Aspex software along with Swampfox PSCs to interested clients.   Aspex is our new Graphics HMI product and is a step above TM, that is currently being used; it will be available first quarter 2007.   Significant changes for TM users include: Trending with pan and zoom;  import JPG and BMP images – these can display Alarm response procedures or photos;  subscreen popups to display detail and statistics; embedded Aspex screens for multiple trends, or to display; Tags and Notes for equipment management; Hot Keys & Tools and Utilities for screen creation and updating - one of these Utilities converts existing TM screens to Aspex screens.   Pricing is to be announced 2007.

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2007 Training Courses

7 - 12 & 16,17 May 2007

5 - 9 & 13,14 November 2007

Course Schedule

Day 1 & 2 General Operations

Day 3 Reporting

Day 4 Programming

Day 5 Aspex

Day 6 & 7 Hardware and Technical 

Site specific courses are available on request.

2007 Conferences

EEA conference and trade show June 14 - 17 Sky City Auckland

NZ Water & Waste Association Sept 19 - 21 Rotorua 

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Christmas Hours

Abbey Systems will close from lunchtime Friday 22 Dec 2006 and reopen for business 8:30am Monday 8th Jan 2007.   Emergency callouts will be answered by Answer Services and forwarded to one of the Directors.  Please Note:  All requests for assistance during this time will attract varying after-hours callout charges, which can be significant.  If a problem can wait until the office reopens then costs are minimal.  

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WebAlarm Phones Some of the latest 3G phones have good web browsers and are suited to running WebAlarm.  The Nokia 6255 (Telecom) and Nokia 6234 (Vodafone) allow users to interrogate their sites and display current alarms, statuses and measurements.   WebAlarm was originally formatted for PDA phones with larger screens; however, the improvement in phone-based browsers means larger sites can be viewed from smaller phones now.   Here are pics of a client site Alarm list and site details.

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New Orders

Umquah, Oregon, USA

Umquah is Indian for "'many hidden valleys" and is a region located in Central Oregon, USA.  Umquah's Water Engineers had been considering replacement of their old SCADA system for some time, when Lester Abbey and Barry Watson visited on a fact-finding trip to the area last year.   As a result of the visit Barry received an invitation to install a trial Swampfox system for evaluation.  We are pleased to announce the success of the trial has resulted in an order for the replacement of the old system with a Swampfox system and work has commenced on the project.

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Projects

Rotorua District Council Swampfox Upgrade Project

Stage 3 of the Rotorua district-wide telemetry contract is about to get underway commencing with the commissioning of a new repeater.  Once complete, this project will see all 65 pump stations in the wastewater collection system upgraded with new Swampfox Pump Station Controllers, standardised I/O wiring, configuration and programs.   The existing Modulink equipment has been running continuously since 1989. 

Utuhina Alum Stream Dosing Project  

Swampfox PSC Proportional Control Application by Graeme Clover

Recently a project was completed on behalf of Environment Bay of Plenty (EBOP) to provide "proportional (PID closed-loop) control" of a dosing pump to maintain the level of Alum chemical dosing of a significant stream that flows into Lake Rotorua.  The alum dosing is used to make dissolved nutrients in the stream (i.e. nitrogen and phosphorous, etc.) solidify and drop out of suspension from the stream water.  In this manner, EBOP are commencing programs to reduce the nutrient contamination of the Rotorua lakes and reduce algae growth, so improving the area’s lake environments generally.   Refer to http://www.ebop.govt.nz/Water/Lakes/Lake-Water-Quality.asp for more information.

The "Powerlink" alum dosing control programs are run as RTU programs in the site's Swampfox PSC (acting as a combined SCADA RTU and PLC), which is also being monitored by the Rotorua District Council's new Wastewater Telemetry system via a UHF radio system.  The inputs to this "closed-loop" control program suite are, the water flow (L/s) from the stream sensor, the required dosing and chemical concentration setpoints (ppm), and the actual alum dose rate from a mass-flow meter (L/hr).  The output is the 0-20mA AnalogOut signal controlling the speed of the dosing pump which governs the alum flow out through the stream diffuser.

Traditionally proportional control uses the classic PID loop theory algorithm to provide a controlled variable output based on a measured variable input.  The Powerlink programs using integer arithmetic functions provide a good simulation of the PID control function, by varying the controlled output pump speed of 0-100%, using 3 stages of 1%, 3% or 10% step values.  This ensures a fast response to large step changes when required and fine control when close to the target dosing rate.  The PID repeat periods follow automatically from the basics of Powerlink programming, and are changed at runtime to accommodate differing accuracies in the incoming actual alum dosing rate signal.  Other programs limit the dosing levels to within set minimum and maximum values, as well as using sophisticated alarm programs to signal when the dosing rate is outside of set high / low levels.

The result is a suite of programs that run at the Swampfox PSC and maintain control of the alum dosing to better than +-2% output variation and with minimal overshoot, undershoot or hunting, etc.

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Swampfox Pump Station Controller

All Swampfox PSCs now ship with Allen Bradley DF-1 and Modbus Master protocol firmware fitted.  They also ship with Datalogging capability which allows the onsite logging of measurements, status changes and pulse count values independently of the poll cycle. This means much more frequent sampling can occur, meeting requirements of the Drinking Water Standards for compliance monitoring.   The data can then be retrieved at a convenient time via the existing communications channel.

(Note: Using these features may require software updates at the SCADA Master)

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***Master Communicators****

Abbey Systems recommends customers check their versions of Master Communicator hardware being used and update to an Enhanced Communicator if one isn't already fitted.  Enhanced Communicators can be identified by a label on the rear panel with Part No B05-020 or B05-020M.   If not labeled on the outside the PCB unit is A05-020-xx.   The first ECOMs were shipped mid 1991, but original Communicators were still shipped after that date.

The Enhanced Communicator better processes data received from RTUs in the field that are connected to PLCs and other IEDs via a serial connection.  All EComms should be fitted with the AGC option for optimum radio network performance.  This is an add-on PCB fitted on top of the main PCB.  If it’s present it can be seen by peering into the back of the module over the connector labelled “Direct I/O”.

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