RC02
EXPANDABLE RTU The RC02 RTU has been under development for 6 months now, and should be available in the New Year. The unit is designed to cater for more demanding installations especially in the Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED) field where we are receiving an increase in inquiries.
This RTU will share many of the same features of the existing RTU, with the major difference being an I/O expansion bus. The bus architecture is an industry standard that is supported by many component suppliers. The bus will enable the user to purchase, as required, various expansion options such as 4/8 channel 12 bit A to D converters, digital input and output expansion, non volatile memory expansion (EEPROM). The flexibility of the bus will allow us to cheaply manufacture custom I/O bus cards that suit specific customer requirements.
The RTU will have three communications ports. These being a standard RS232 configuration/monitor port, an RS232/422/485 peripheral interface port and a V.23 Conitel port. This V.23 port can also support other bit/character-based protocols such as SDLC/HDLC. The peripheral interface port will be suitable for a range of IED devices, and will support Modbus and DNP 3 as standard. Other protocols will be developed as required. Both the Conitel port and the peripheral port will be served by a dedicated UART/USRT device, enabling fast and secure communications. Radio interfacing will be available as standard on the V.23 port.
The power supply will be as per the successful RC01, that being a switch mode 8-40 VDC input 5 VDC output supply.
Up to eight bus cards can be added to the I/O bus. The Multi Bus Card will contain analog inputs, pulse accumulators and some control outputs and inputs. Another bus card will contain non volatile RAM for data logging. We plan on developing an EEPROM Bus card for control algorithms.
The basic RTU will be slightly more expensive than the RC01. The expandable Bus card system gives you functionality as you require it, which keep the cost down for less demanding installations. It is a product philosophy where you pay only for what you use.
Communications options for
the RC02 are only constrained by the data transfer mediums that will be
available. The combination of RS232/485 and V.23 will allow for solutions
to most available comms links. Most available protocols will be possible
for communication back to a master station. We intend on developing Modbus
and DNP 3 as first priority.
