Unfortunately, not all of the industrial facilities currently have a fully-equipped staff of highly qualified specialists capable of maintaining the modern crane drive control systems. However, this fact does not mean that the equipment does not require repairs; despite the fact that “Dvesta” LLC uses the most advanced components and constituent parts to implement its projects, there are always risks of operation breakdowns, or it might be necessary to modify dynamic parameters of the drives used. The maintenance personnel for the frequency-regulated crane systems nowadays is required to have knowledge and skills in the field of programmed logical controllers and frequency converters delivered by different manufacturers. Also, such personnel must have appropriate costly equipment to execute system maintenance. Some of the customers using such machinery are forced to conclude 3rd-party maintenance agreements with organizations that are not always fully aware of the working algorithms of the crane electric drives issued by different manufacturers.
Taking into account all of the mentioned factors, “Dvesta”, LLC currently offers a system for remote crane diagnostics. The company’s specialists have access to all the diagnostics data of the programmed logical controllers and frequency converters installed on cranes. This option is a web-based tool. Crane control systems are equipped with special devices that establish GSM connections; depending on what is requested by the Customer, it can be a 3G-touter or a GPRS-modem, which facilitate transparent TCP-connections between the two local networks: the crane local network on one side, and the specially created VPN-server by “Dvesta”, LLC on the other side. Alongside the commutation equipment facilitating the connection, the configuration may use different interface transforming devices (for example, an EtherNet/Profibus node) depending on the type and producer of the actual frequency converter. As for the data protection against access by any 3rd party, one can stay assured that the use of contemporary protected data transfer technologies (OpenVNP, IPSec) allows one to completely exclude unauthorized external access to such systems. Besides, it is always possible to block any system data transfer, or simply disable or enable it when necessary.
Taking into account the possible crane down times and costs incurred by the Customer during temporary equipment failures, the response times of the crane control system suppliers (and often the end user and the supplier are separated by a long distance), the remote crane diagnostics system by “Dvesta”, LLC (with due account for its low cost) represents a convenient and flexible solution allowing one to increase the reliability and stability of the entire technologic process.
