Monico's Latest Advance in Industrial Monitoring: The CDL Gateway PLUS

Less than two years after the release of Monico's CDL Gateway, Monico Inc. releases the CDL Gateway PLUS - "a way not only to monitor industrial engines, but to let them communicate."

More than a decade ago, Monico began its journey as a specialist in communicating with Caterpillar industrial equipment. Its first product was a pre-configured solution, the CCM Translator, which converted Caterpillar's Customer Communications Module into Modbus RTU over serial communications. When the ADEM III engine ECM was introduced, Monico adapted and improved its CCM Translator -- expanding its functionality to multiple module systems. "Since the translator was a pre-configured solution, easy to install, and extremely reliable, it captured a substantial market share and gained Monico an excellent reputation in the world of industrial engines," said Doyle Taylor, president of the Spring, Texas, U.S.A.-based Monico Inc.

"In 2006, Caterpillar decided to obsolete the CCM Module, so Monico started product development on the CDL Gateway," said Taylor. The CDL Gateway provides direct access to engine monitoring parameters from Caterpillar industrial equipment via a variety of different protocols, without the need for intermediary devices. "This new product was officially released in September of 2007 and has been extremely successful in the marketplace, allowing Monico to more than triple its customer base in the first year since release," said Taylor. "Compared to the new CDL Gateway PLUS, the CDL Gateway is a bare-bones solution, but it is also a solid solution, which accomplished what the majority of Monico customers were looking for at the time.

The features of the basic CDL Gateway include:

• Automatic detection of engine/generator controllers on the data link
• Pre-configured mapping for all potential parameters
• Modbus RTU slave over RS-232 and RS-485
• Modbus TCP/IP slave over Ethernet
• Modbus master capability to gather data from other system devices
• Capability to push parameters into Allen Bradley, GE Fanuc, and Siemens PLC´s without intermediary devices or drivers
• OPC server capability with OPC Worx software
• Two RS-232 ports, one RS-485 port and one Ethernet port
• Serial ports capable of communicating via one unique protocol each
• An Ethernet port capable of communicating via four simultaneous protocols

According to Taylor, the CDL Gateway PLUS takes the CDL Gateway to the next level "fully integrating industrial engine communications with Internet and mobile technology, so that engines are not only monitored, but are able to send real-time alerts if they are functioning outside of normal parameters."

The CDL Gateway PLUS features include:

• Real-time data logging using an onboard 2 GB flash card
• SMTP/SMS email server to send email and text messages upon alarms
• FTP server to allow remote transfer of log files
• SYNC server to automatically sync log files with a remote server at time intervals
• Color or monochrome touch screen virtual Human Machine Interface (HMI) Web server
• Custom HTML Web Page Interface capability
• Optional digital and analog inputs and outputs

"The most sought-after feature of this group is the real-time data logging," said Taylor, "which the customer can use to easily set up multiple logging profiles for up to 200 files of data with automatic FIFO (First in First Out). Many customers have the ability to log and trend data, but the sheer volume of data makes it difficult to log engine data at short enough intervals for effective diagnosis of difficult, rapidly occurring malfunctions."

One large natural gas mid-stream company recently discovered just how valuable this real-time data logging could be after the company's compression manager attempted to use their current SCADA system to help diagnose some mysterious cylinder liner failures. "Unfortunately, the SCADA system was only polling each compressor every two to three minutes," said Taylor. "When the company sent this data to the factory for analysis, they could not determine the cause of failure with the current data point frequency. One of the factory's employees made the comment, "A train wreck can happen in much less than three minutes."

The company's SCADA department had already been working with Monico on the development of the CDL Gateway, so they approached Monico about what could be done to collect higher-frequency data. Monico installed two CDL Gateway PLUS units on the two most problematic engines, updated the compressor where the CDL Gateway acted as a Modbus master, and polled the compressor data from the Altronics DE-2500 controller. Monico set up the logging system to log 60 engine parameters and 20 compressor parameters every three seconds. Each file held one day of data, and 200 days of data were stored before overwriting the first file.

In less than a week, another cylinder liner failure occurred on one of the engines with the new logging feature. The data was captured and sent to Caterpillar and other industry experts. It quickly became apparent that some coolant thermostats were sticking intermittently and causing a loss of lubrication due to high coolant temperature. "The customer inspected and replaced each thermostat and has not had a similar failure since," said Taylor. "When the company had more mysterious failures some months later, they quickly decided to upgrade their entire fleet of over 90 G3606 and G3608 compressors with the CDL Gateway PLUS with real-time data logging.

Another use of the CDL Gateway PLUS is the remote monitoring of unmanned generators. "With the CDL Gateway PLUS, not only can customers check in on the engines from any Web browser, but the Gateway will send real-time e-mail and text notifications in case of any issues," said Taylor. "When an on-duty technician is notified by e-mail or text message that the generator is experiencing a fault, they can log on to their corporate network and access the virtual HMI using nothing but Internet Explorer."

When the customer types in the unique IP Address for their generator, they see a color touch-screen HMI that allows them to quickly see the complete condition of their generator. In each customer's case, Monico designs screen pages such as a menu page, an engine data page, a generator data page, a generator warnings page, and a generator shutdown page.

"With the CDL Gateway PLUS customers can more easily monitor remote assets, maximize uptime, and minimize cost," said Taylor.

	An Engine Data screen shot of the CDL Gateway PLUS monitoring application taken directly from Internet Explorer over a corporate network.
	A Generator Data screen shot of the CDL Gateway PLUS monitoring application taken directly from Internet Explorer over a corporate network.
	A Generator Alarm Notification screen shot of the CDL Gateway PLUS monitoring application taken directly from Internet Explorer over a corporate network.
	A Generator Shutdown screen shot of the CDL Gateway PLUS monitoring application taken directly from Internet Explorer over a corporate network.