Hi Andy
Thanks for the update. We will kill this project on our end for now.
It is not uncommon for package controllers like the Aqueritrol to be protected as intellectual property.
Chemical dosage based on a compound loop of flow and process set point error is not rocket science. We have done similar systems many times and could do this one too. The good news is, you don’t have to spend the money to come up with a different solution right now.
As I have told you, our customers always own anything we do for them so I like your approach. There may some equipment vendors that take exception to this however. Those that do will just have to be dealt with on a case by case basis I suppose.
Thanks & have great weekend!
Troy B. Collison
5835 NE 122nd Avenue, Suite #110
Portland, Oregon 97230
http://www.industrialsystems-inc.com
Phone: 503.262.0367
Cell: 360.957.5039
Fax: 503.262.0371
From: Andy Peters [mailto:apeters@cityofmolalla.com]
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2017 12:53 PM
To: Troy Collison
Cc: Gerald Fisher; Ryan Hepler; Jason Clifford; Jeff Mccrum; Jon Randall
Subject: Aqueritrol plc
Hello Troy,
As you know our Aqueritrol doser went belly up last week. Your low voltage folks (John) was out yesterday looking at available space on our WTP scada PLC, under instructions to look in to moving the Aqueritrol’s program logic from the DirectLogic plc into our Scada, and eliminating the Aqueritrol setup entirely.
Good news is, we swapped out the DirectLogic PLC and the Aqueritrol is working again. The program was available on an EEPROG chip on the CPU.
Bad new is, the program is password protected with a 4 digit int and westech won’t give it to me. Something about “intellectual property” and blah blah. So I can’t alter it, give it to you, or even save it in a safe source control location.
I’m thinking it’s probably going to be a nasty job for you trying to duplicate that Aqueritrol’s job without seeing the program, it’s not as simple as ons offs and a few timers. And since we are up and running again I’d say we should probably just skip it for now. Unless John or Mark have any ideas.
The takeaway for all of us is that in our new plant (which westech is specifying for us now!) it will be writing into the contract documents that there will be no proprietary ladder logic loaded on our PLCs anywhere and no passwords. That should help both you and me in the future!!
Thank you,
Andy Peters
City of Molalla
Public Works Operations Supervisor
(503) 829-6855 x220
Cell: 503-793-0507
117 N Molalla Ave
Molalla, OR 97038