It's been awhile since I sent you a Christmas poem - we're long overdue. Those of you who hold the civilized world together with RS-232 cables and duct tape and emergency trips in the dark of night will relate to our hero, Steve......
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at his nose
Steve's family listening to a choir
His overtime maintenance duty blows
Substation fires a circuit
The whole town plunged in black
Steve is now called to fix it
By a boss - already in the sack
Miles fly by as he drives thru the night
He's got no choice but to get there
Snowplows stuck & road curves tight
He must now fix the hardware
1 a.m. he arrives on the scene
Equipped to restore happiness
He sniffs out the subroutine
That originally caused this mess
Two lines of code at fault today
Caused a system overload
Breaker settings got in the way
Too much voltage at each node
Problem solved and attaboys
Are fine so far as they go
But still Steve is so very annoyed
To drive back through the snow
High tension lines traverse the land
With fiber cable properly exploited
If the right data was in my hands
Maybe this trip would be avoided
But an RTU at 1200 baud
Is very much too slow
When equipment goes on the fritz
Too long before we know
Missing data leaves us dry
Wondering what to do
Connect the dots and analyze
When Ethernet links RS-232
Now we know the status of
Every single transformer
From far away we know and love
Voltage, current, and temperature
Serial Servers, DIN Rails and
Fiber optic cables
Light speed travels across the land
To tell you all your data tables
Now we check our status lights
From the safety of our home PC
And instant data when regulators come
From Washington DC.
- An industrial-grade Fiber to Copper converter puts the data on the ever-familiar Blue Ethernet cable.
http://www.bb-europe.com/product_family.asp?familyid=359
- A family of 3- 5- and 8- port Industrial Ethernet switches distribute the data throughout the substation.
http://www.bb-europe.com/product_multi_family.asp?MultiFamilyId=68
- Serial Server converts Ethernet to RS-422/485, extending Intranet access to all the serial devices
http://www.bb-europe.com/productsubcat.asp?MainCategoryId=57
- An RS-232 to RS-485 converter allows multi-drop communication to SCADA devices with RS-485 ports:
http://www.bb-europe.com/product_family.asp?FamilyId=302
- Serial over Fiber Optics, total noise immunity and range up to 9 miles on single mode fiber:
http://www.bb-europe.com/product_family.asp?familyid=103
- For some devices, we need up to 2,000 volts of isolation. These devices defend your equipment from trouble:
http://www.bb-europe.com/product_family.asp?familyid=12
Got questions about this stuff? Email support@bb-europe.com or call +353.91.792444.
Whether you're driving through ice and snow to save civilization next week, or merely punching the clock on New Years Eve, all of us at B&B Electronics wish you a VERY Merry Christmas (yes, can you believe the gall? I just said the "C" word!) and a delightful new year.
To your success,
Mike Fahrion
B&B Electronics
support@bb-europe.com
+353.91.792444
