St. Louis, MO-- Potter Electric Signal Company, LLC of St. Louis, Missouri USA, announces the release of the Modbus Link. The Potter Modbus Link is TCP/IP based software that enables up to 10 compatible Potter fire panels to report panel and point status information to Modbus SCADA systems in commercial buildings, campuses, and industrial facilities. This supplementary device interface allows third party Modbus masters (clients) to display and respond to fire system activity. Life safety functions are retained in the fire alarm control panels. The Modbus Link converts native Potter panel protocol into Modbus. All the Potter and Modbus communications utilize an Ethernet-TCP/IP network. The Modbus Link is unique in that it is a licensed software solution that will run as a Windows® service on a site provided computer.
Modbus is the most widely supported, easiest to implement and easiest to understand open network in the world today. It is a simple communication protocol developed by Modicon systems. The Potter fire panel state, status and detailed panel activity are represented by a series of 16-bit input registers. The Modbus Link automatically configures up to 10 panels in a fixed register map. In addition, a CSV report can be generated that details the register map.
Bob Teta, Engineering Manager for the Fire and Security Division at Potter said, “The Modbus Link is an ideal product for industrial applications. Configuring 10 panels with the Modbus Link takes less than 5 minutes. The Modbus Link creates a CSV formatted map that can be imported into your SCADA system. Most importantly, Potter panels do not require any additional fire panel hardware to communicate with the Modbus Link – the built-in ethernet is ready to communicate with the Modbus-Link software right out of the box. The Potter Modbus Link is the most advanced and cost-effective solution available.”
