The solution

The integrator had won a contract to provide an intrusion alarm system for roadside cabinets. It was critical that the equipment in the roadside cabinet could operate 24/7. Amplicon was approached to provide a solution to cycle the power in the cabinet in case of a system crash. In addition, the temperature inside the cabinet was monitored for overheating and the door switch was monitored in case of a security breach. Amplicon specified a solution that included the MOXA E22x0 series of Ethernet I/O modules which provided the Active I/O function; One module used for temperature monitoring, while another monitored a switch contact closure on the door and provided a relay output to control the power supply.

The MOXA "Click & Go" software completed the solution, giving engineers with little or no programming experience the ability to set-up the units so that on a condition change, it would send an alarm. In this case, it would be when a door opens or the temperature rises to a dangerous level; the E22x0 Active I/O module would raise an alarm over the network using an Active message (SNMP trap or email) back to the central control room.

Results

With this solution, Amplicon was able to provide an extremely cost-effective way to identify problems within the roadside cabinets quickly and easily. This allowed an engineer to take immediate action before the equipment inside could fail and repair or replacement would cost the end customer valuable downtime.

Why Amplicon?

Amplicon was seen as the best partner for this project as they could offer expertise in both instrumentation and networking solutions, as well as being able to provide a simple to configure solution within the customers budget.