Project: Baton Rouge Wastewater Pump Station SCADA System (December 6, 2005)

December 6, 2005

Well, we got an answer sooner than we expected regarding the primary consultant’s evaluation vs. our own on the RTU and local HMI. Turns out that the primary consultant isn’t going to evaluate our solution at all. The primary consultant and end user’s lack of prior experience with our proposed solution seems to be the main reason. My point of view is, what’s the harm in looking at something new? After all, the end user was willing. This circumstance reminds me of the old cartoon of the salesman trying to sell Gatling guns to a colonel leading a battle with musket-armed troops who tells the salesman: “I don’t have time to look at your contraption, I’ve got a battle to fight!” The good news in all this is that the primary consultant is in agreement with our need to test whatever RTU and HMI is chosen, and that this will be something we are compensated for.

After the selection process has been completed and contract issued, we will look into the possibility of doing a comparison between the selected hardware and our picks.

We have also encountered some problems with our updated Modbus firmware from the existing RTU manufacturer. It seems the RTU manufacturer’s engineering group responsible for getting this together for us never got the word we were doing a firmware upgrade for Modbus connectivity. Our old program was checked out on the controller by the RTU manufacturer, but they never checked to see that the Modbus functionality was working. Well, it’s not…more on this next week.

Do you have experience and expertise with the topics mentioned in this content? You should consider contributing to our CFE Media editorial team and getting the recognition you and your company deserve. Click here to start this process.