Adroit Technologies, software development house for the manufacturing and information reporting sectors is launching Adroit P³, a product promising a ‘one-stop, off-the-shelf, hardware and software automation solution’.
John Crain, business development manager for Adroit and originator of the idea says: "I noticed a gap in the market - farmers, smaller standalone businesses and even home management can all benefit from a supervisory control and data acquisition (scada) system like Adroit to facilitate their activities and achieve greater efficiencies. To accomplish the goal of creating a scada system for smaller applications, we had to overcome the challenges around the cost of designing, building and integrating a solution."
To create Adroit P³, Adroit Technologies combined a 30 I/O Adroit scada software package with LG's programmable logic controller (PLC) and a 10" touch-screen industrial PC (IPC) in a steel panel. The result is a neatly integrated solution catering for 18 inputs, 12 outputs in a panel no bigger than a desktop safe.
Crain says: "Very often a company wishes to monitor a couple of machines on a production line and the Adroit P³ is a perfect solution. By installing the P³, wiring in some sensors along with some basic PLC and scada configuration will see results in a very short time."
Technical specifications
Adroit P³, consists of a 30 scanned point Adroit agent server, a LG Glofa PLC (18 inputs (24 V d.c.), 12 outputs (relay contact) with PLC programming software), a 10" colour industrial touch screen PC (Windows XP Pro, 1,2 GHz Pentium Mobile, 256 MB expandable RAM, 40 GB HDD, four RS232 serial commmunications ports, one RS485 serial communications port, six USB ports and an Ethernet port), communications cables and wiring diagram. This entire system is housed in a powder coated 500 x 400 x 240 mm panel with a single phase circuit breaker, 24 V power supply and I/O wired to terminals.
"The scada is a full-blown Adroit product and as such offers the full functionality of the product. This includes the MIS functionality, the energy management capabilities, along with the powerful alarming and historical logging capabilities of South Africa's number one scada," says Crain.
The Adroit P³ retails for less than R40 000,00, making it a very attractive offering to the small to medium market. The Adroit P³ is in fact priced below the equivalent sum of the individual parts - without compromising on functionality.
Typical applications
"Take for example a farmer - he may have five or six crop irrigation systems that he has to drive out to start and stop on a daily basis. By installing the Adroit P³ and some additional telemetry he can do it from the comfort of his home or office, and can even configure the system so that he can start and stop his machinery from anywhere using his cellphone or the Internet. Plus he can add all the stop/start functionality for his reservoir pumps to the system as well and control these remotely," says Crain.
In fact, wherever there is a control environment, be it home security, building management; agricultural sorting, drying, cracking or feed control; manufacturing processes, or even paint stock tracking in a panel beating shop - the Adroit P³ can add value.
The front panel of the Adroit P3 unit holds the touch screen control panel, and units can be customised to the client's requirements with the addition of a stop/start button or emergency stop. Additional scada scan points can be added, as well as additional I/O cards added to the PLC. The PC capacity can also be extended to deal with more advanced applications.
"Smaller systems integrators (SI) also like the product because it combines all the aspects required for process management and control, in one panel. Yet it is so powerful that it can still be used in large mines, where for example it could control environmental systems," says Crain.
Warranty and availability
The Adroit P³ comes with a year's carry-in warranty (from date of delivery) on faulty components and workmanship. Warranty claims, regardless of whether they are hardware or software, will be handled by Adroit. Adroit and LG will also offer joint training on the product.
Testing of the Adroit P³ was completed in November 2006. The units are now available to the market.
For more information contact Charles Hudgson, Adroit Technologies, +27 (0)11 658 8100, [email protected], www.adroit.co.za
| Tel: | +27 11 658 8100 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.adroit.co.za |
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