Data transmission through power lines

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Thread Starter

Pradeep Chatterjee

We have several CNC (HMI) machining centers in our plant. I want to connect all to a central PC so that whenever I want I can monitor/work on any particular machine from a centralised place. I do not want to invest money in interconnecting the CNCs with a separate network. Instead I will prefer to use the 440V, 50Hz, 3 phase power supply line for data transmission. I shall be grateful if anyone can suggest any reference (books, journals,research papers,websites,etc) related to this topic. With thanks
Pradeep Chatterjee
M-30/7,
TELCO Colony,
Jamshedpur-831004 (India)
Email: [email protected]
Ph:91-0657-487549 (R)
 
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Edgar F. Hilton

I would suspect that there might be a problem in cleaning up the signal, especially since you are driving induction motors. Thus, I would suspect a loss in transfer speeds. I strongly suspect that in the long term, it should be cheaper to set up a secondary network with shielded cables (such as BNC).

Otherwise, you need to have means of cleaning up the signal at both ends. Also, you will need to protect the PCs on both ends of your transmission line ==> $$$.

I know that this has been done commercially with household wiring and special modems. However, in an industrial setting, where you expect to have many stray magnetic fields, extremely "dirty" power lines, floating groundsl, and stray RF, I strongly suspect that this might be a problem.

I would love to see what other people have to say on this issue.

-Edgar
 
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Amora Fibrianto

i guess you will need powerline modem on your application, the modem has the ability and capability of an ordinary modem (your dial up or radio modem)... but use an ac powerline as a medium..

may be other list members could give a better description ...

Rgrds
AF

> We have several CNC (HMI) machining centers in our plant. I want to connect all to a central PC so that whenever I want I can monitor/work on any particular machine from a centralised place. I do not want to invest money in interconnecting the CNCs with a separate network. Instead I will prefer to use the 440V, 50Hz, 3 phase power supply line for data transmission. I shall be grateful if anyone can suggest any reference (books, journals,research papers,websites,etc) related to this topic. <
 
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There are several commercially available products to do this, but they do not appear to be robust enough for the industrial control environment. If
you are concerned by the cost of wiring a network, consider doing wireless ethernet, with somebody like Datalinc. The cost of hubs, routers and NICs is trivial in comparison to the wiring cost.

Walt Boyes
 
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Pradeep,

I've had a little experience with using LONWorks over power line. Top speed was 9600 bps, and getting the stuff to work in a noisy environment can make pulling cables look like fun. Power line
*sounds* like a great idea, but leaves a lot to be desired in practice.

As an alternative, look at short-haul 2.3 GHz Ethernet stuff.
Check out: http://www.dlink.com

There should be some $300 solutions you can use.

Regards,

Willy Smith
Numatics
Costa Rica
 
Has anyone done a real comparison of all the technologies out there for power line communications.. Is it all "hipe" or does some of it actually work well.

Jim Evans
 
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