In The News

Source: Energy User News
Publication Date: 02/01/1989
Author: Mullin, Richard
Available online here.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Ford Aerospace has completed the addition of five multiplexer-type field panels to a Honeywell Delta 1000 at its headquarters buildings here. Similar panels were also used to extend the system to four new office buildings that the satellite manufacturer recently occupied in San Jose, according to John Bell, energy engineer for the company.

The Optomux panels, manufactured by Opto 22, Huntington Beach, Calif., were networked with the original field equipment after one of the suppliers, Computrols, New Orleans, replaced the CPU of Ford's five-year-old Honeywell Delta 1000 EMS with a PC-based front end system last April.

The new front end uses Energy 2.0C software, manufactured by Systems Associates, Bowling Green, Ohio, to program and monitor the existing Honeywell and the new Opto field panels on a single network. The system now has a PC-based front end in both Palo Alto and San Jose, both using 2.0C software, and is currently programmed and monitored centrally in Palo Alto.

The Honeywell system originally controlled 23 buildings in various locations in Palo Alto and Mountain View, Calif. The Delta 1000, according to Bell, was installed in 1983 as an upgrade and expansion of a Honeywell Selectographic control system installed in the 1960s. No payback was figured on the Palo Alto Optomuxes because they replaced Selectographic equipment which would have needed new Honeywell data gathering panels, he said.

According to Bell, the front end of the Honeywell system was replaced last year because it was difficult to program and costly to maintain. Only one person on Ford's staff could do the intricate programming necessary, he said.

Bell said the cost of replacing the CPU--$37,000-- was equal to last year's payments to Honeywell for maintaining the system under a service contract.

"Honeywell was willing to restructure our maintenance payments, but with their CPU it was to our advantage to keep a contract for the front end," he said. Honeywell would have been able to bring service and maintenance payments down to about $20,000 to maintain the CPU, he said.

Bell said he also talked with Honeywell about upgrading the Delta system, but the cost of doing this and the necessary maintenance cost were still too high.

Five of the Optomux panels, with a total of 78 points, were added to the system at the company's main location in Palo Alto. These cost $8,000, and were installed by in-house personnel, which Bell said added another $8,000 to the installation.

The 2.0C software in Palo Alto runs on an existing IBM AT. The panels were supplied by Manco, Santa Clara, Calif.

In San Jose, the installation of the four Optomux panels, a fiberoptics link between buildings, an IBM Model 50Z personal computer with Energy 2.0C software and communications between the site and Palo Alto was performed by computrol at a cost of $140,000, according to Bell.

The San Jose panels have a total of 183 points. The network now controls 27 buildings in the three cities.

While there is no service contract on the installation, there is a one-year warranty on the new equipment. Bell said that Ford can renew the warranty for about $1,000 a year, but he is unsure of whether he will choose to do this.

The PC-based system has been operating since April with only minor programming problems, he said. He added that the data-gathering panels from the original Honeywell system can be maintained by in-house personnel.

A spokeswoman for Honeywell said the company had a good relationship with Ford Aerospace for years and is still conducting business with Ford in other locations nationwide. She added that Honeywell's new front-end CPU replacement would have been a "perfect fit," but that decisions were made at Ford Aerospace before Graphic Central was available.

According to Richard Wright, vice president of sales and marketing, Systems Associates is able to link systems from any vendor willing to divulge its proprietary communication protocol, as well as any system with a protocol that Systems Associates can decipher. COPYRIGHT 1989 Business News Publishing Co.