| Newsletter
July 2006
July
31st -August 9th
We're now accepting
enrollments for Powerlink training
courses to be held at our factory
early in August. Course dates
and prices are;
| General
Operations |
 |
31 July - 1
Aug |
|
$850 |
| Programming |
|
2nd Aug |
|
$500 |
| Reporting |
|
3rd Aug |
|
$500 |
| Telemetry
Mimic |
|
4th Aug |
|
$500 |
| Hardware
& Tech |
|
8th - 9th Aug |
|
$1,000 |
If you have expressed an interest
in attending one of these courses
in the last 6 months we will have
recorded it and will be contacting
you directly. If not please contact
us now to register your interest.
Course numbers are restricted
to ensure every attendee receives
a high level of tutorial support.
Abbey Systems does reserve the
right to postpone or cancel a
course due to insufficient numbers
or for any other reason.
We are planning a new one day
course covering ‘RTU
setup’ This course is
designed to help Techs and Engineers
in the steps of installing Abbey
RTUs onto SCADA systems using
other comms protocols i.e. Conitel
or DNP3. As such, it covers serial
configuration, which is relevant
to commissioning IEDs (meters,
relays, VSDs and anything else
that communicates via a serial
connection).
The topics
we intend to cover include.
Hardware - installing
the RTU (Powerlink, Topcat &
Swampfox PSC), serial connections,
using Local Master software to
set up comms timings.
Serial - DNP3 Slave
setup and configuration (to communicate
with your SCADA Master), Modbus
Master and DNP3 Master to communicate
with IEDs (meters and relays),
Ethernet connection - IP RTUs.
Programming - logic
programs for onsite automation
and comms fail fallback.
We would appreciate receiving
an indication of your possible
interest in this course and your
feedback on our proposed course
syllabus. If there is sufficient
interest we may schedule the first
course for later this year. Click
here to send
us an email.
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A lot of SCADA systems use cellular
modems for sending out SMS alarm
messages and receiving alarm acknowledgments.
We find the GSM (Vodafone) ones
easier to deal with but a number
of customers require CDMA ones
(Telecom).
CDMA modems that in the past have
operated without trouble have
recently locked up at a number
of sites. The problem is with
the modem and not Powerlink software
and we suspect that changes in
the Telecom Cellular network are
the cause. We do have firmware
updates for the CDMA modem that
the supplier recommends be applied.
If you have been having trouble
recently and want your firmware
updated then please contact us.
This offer is free to customers
with current support contracts.
Aspex is the name of our
latest SCADA Operations software.
At the recent EEA show we demonstrated
this product to a number of our
current Power customers The product
is currently in Alpha testing
and will be offered as an option
to customers, replacing TM. More
importantly it has several new
features for customers not possible
within TM.
Trends with
Pan and Zoom
Aspex comes with a Realtime
Trending package superior to TM's.
It allows operators to pan and
zoom the trend screen with up
to 10 channels on each screen.
Import &
resize bitmaps & jpgs
BMP and JPG files can be
imported and scaled - load your
company logo, images of various
plant, photos or scanned documents.
Tags &
Notes Option
Tags & Notes Option
allows Operators to prohibit operation
of a control or attach a note
to a status or measurement. When
applied to an I/O point, tags
and notes attaches a small icon
to the device which operators
can view and edit. This feature
is most useful to our Power Distribution
Industry customers but any customer
whose system uses security to
allow control operation can use
it. This will be an Aspex option
only.
Aspex subscreen
popups - Stay on top
Aspex popups allow more
information to be displayed while
leaving the original screen viewable
below e.g. pump stats - no. of
starts, pump run hours, inflow,
outflow can be displayed on a
popup. This will help de-clutter
screens while still giving prompt
access to information. This information
can be generated by the reporting
package
Advanced multiple embedded Aspex
screens
Multiple trends, log file,
alarm list & RTU overview
screens can all be embedded in
your Aspex screen making a more
structured layout. You decide
where you want them. The image
below is of a typical Pump Station
screen with two embedded trend
screens, log file and alarm queue
in the same Aspex screen.
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If the answer is YES, chances
are the path has been removed
from the “View Log File”
screen. Powerlink Log Files, by
default, go into the C:\PL\PLG
folder. In the “View Log
File” screen (F2) the file
reference in the top right of
the screen locates the log file
folder and path. It must show
PLG\*.PLG. If the PLG\ is missing
or has been removed you won’t
be able to see the list of log
files or open today’s
log either.
When starting Powerlink SCADA
Master software we recommend customers
use the Powerlink shortcut/link
in Start|Programs|Startup and
not start the program directly
from the executable via products
like PowerDesk or Windows Explorer.
The reason for this is that the
shortcut/link installs the default
switches for the log path, required
user, Master/Backup ID, etc which
are required at startup.
Without these Powerlink will not
operate as intended.
Powerlink uses two descriptions
for each I/O point. These are
the ON Message, the message to
display when the I/O is ON, and
the OFF Message to display when
it is OFF. If no OFF message is
entered then no useful OFF message
appears in the log which makes
fault finding so much more difficult.
If the OFF message would make
no sense we suggest using the
ON message but placing it in brackets
e.g. ON message “AUTO SELECTED”
, OFF Message
(AUTO SELECTED).
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(PL 3.7.1 Feb 2005 or later)
There’s a really useful
screen in Powerlink called the
“Sites Select” screen
(Alt+A) found under “Remote”
on the menu bar. This is a searchable
screen which lists the site by
RTU number, site name, comms channel,
type of RTU, poll period and several
other fields for each RTU. To
carry out a search enter a “value”
or “label” above the
field to be searched by and check
the [ ] field on the left hand
side column [x]. This will display
only those sites with that value
or description.
To display all fields untick the
same [ ] field.
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A recent callout we received
was for a radio repeater which
had failed over a weekend period.
(Late at night of course). Its
failure meant the whole SCADA
network stopped working, cutting
communications with bores, pump
stations, treatment plants and
the SCADA Master which meant Alarms
for the whole area were compromised.
The cause of the failure was the
backup batteries at the repeater
site had run low and when they
got low enough the radios shut
down and the repeater stopped
working. The reason the backup
batteries had run low was the
230VAC Mains to the site had failed
during a storm earlier that week,
the site had switched to the batteries
and mains hadn’t been restored...
but no-one knew this at the time.
If an RTU had been installed on
the site it would have reported
the mains failure before the weekend
and before the repeater failed,saving
the customer a callout at an inconvenient
time.
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Water2006
1st - 4th August 2006,
Hyatt Regency, Auckland.
This conference and trade show
is being run by Event Management
Ltd.
Liz Alexander ran the NZ WWA show
for several years and is now promoting
and managing this event. http://www.water2006.com
The Water
Conference - Enough for Everyone?"
11th - 13th October, Christchurch
Convention Centre.
This is the NZWWA Annual Conference
& Trade show. Interestingly
enough it has a similar name to
the other conference being held
in August? Lester Abbey, Managing
Director, & Steve Dorrington,
Sales & Marketing Manager
will be on Stand 55 in the trade
show foyer. http://www.nzwwa.org.nz/
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Porirua City Council are
installing a new PLC to control
their Wastewater
Treatment plant. The WWTP site
faces north norwest out to sea
and has poor radio communications
paths back to the SCADA Master
at the Council offices. The site
is being upgraded with four new/replacement
milliscreens, as well as two new
centrifuges replacing two sludge
belt presses. The existing control
system has been upgraded for the
new plant and the opportunity
presented itself to upgrade the
communications path at the same
time.
We are fitting a Topcat RTU with
an ethernet IP connection. The
Topcat will communicate serially
with the AB PLC and return I/O
to the Porirua City Council Powerlink
SCADA Master via Jetstream. A
growing number of our clients
are using IP for comms.
We’ve recently been commissioned
to build two RTU test kits for
a large NZ based power company.
These kits will be 19"racks
2m tall containing Power Supplies
& Distribution, GE Harris
and Foxboro RTUs with Digital
Input, Analog Input simulators
and several Circuit Breaker simulators.
We’ve built a number of
our own simulators which we use
for training Power Engineers and
this coupled with our SCADA RTU
experience and delivery commitments
are the reason we won the job.
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Here are some products that you
may not be aware we provide.
Powerlink
Data Logging Module
Additional software installed
at the Powerlink SCADA Master
to manage historical timestamped
datalogged files retrieved from
remotes in the field. RTUs can
store between 19,000-25,000 events
(depending on the model) which
are retrieved periodically via
the communications network. Very
useful for RMA compliance monitoring
and a number of our clients have
upgraded key sites for just
this purpose.
Datalogging firmware can be fitted
to Microlink & Minilink RTUs,
Powerlink, Topcat and New Communicators
(upgrade for older Modulink RTU
sites). It comes standard in Swampfox™
PSC requiring only the SCADA Master
software module above to operate.
Foxcub RS-232
& RS-485 Fibre Optic Converters
- Plastic & Glass
These fibre converters
come in RS-232 and RS-485 versions
with glass or plastic connectors.
Useful when isolating serial equipment
or extending a communications
bus any distance. These are universal
devices that will work in all
applications with multimode fibre.
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