FlexEnergy, headquartered in Portsmouth, N.H., engineers and builds robust small gas turbine products. The GT333 consists of a 480V AC high-voltage panel where the generator is located and a 120V AC and 24V DC low-voltage panel for the controls.
“During development of the GT333, we were looking for a method to simplify the Ethernet network within our control system. We had two goals in mind, one goal was to create a cookie-cutter setup of all the devices within the machine to make the configuration of all machines the same, thus simplifying configuration management and service training,” said Adam Mitchneck, controls engineer at FlexEnergy. “The other goal was to have only one IP address for external access to all devices within the machine, thus simplifying network configuration on customer sites. While searching for a method to achieve our goals, we happened upon Contemporary Controls and their Skorpion IP routers.”
The Skorpion IP router simplifies device IP integration. Each machine or subsystem, consisting of multiple IP devices, connects to the LAN side of the router while keeping their same IP settings for the devices and the application, lowering installation cost and eliminating trouble shooting. The IP address for the WAN port on the IP router is the only setting that requires modification to join the factory network, allowing rapid integration and the ability for multiple machines to reuse the same configuration on the LAN side.
The GT333 gas turbine consists of a 480V AC high-voltage panel where the generator is located and a 120V AC and 24V DC low-voltage panel for the controls.Remote access
The GT333 control panel consists of a PLC, an HMI, an embedded PC, and an inverter that form an internal network connected to the LAN side of the IP router with a built-in 4-port switch. For sites requiring additional IP equipment on the internal network, a Contemporary Controls 5-port EISK5-100T Ethernet switch was used for expansion. The available Ethernet ports can also be used by the customer to add additional devices to the network if required.
Using the Port Forwarding feature of the IP router, the different IP ports from the external WAN IP address were mapped to different internal LAN devices in the control panel. This setup was then easily uploaded to multiple routers for use in different turbines allowing for the same configuration to be used across all the devices. This helped speed up the testing of the turbine while being built at the factory and the installation at the site by …….