Bit of an odd one. In our robotics module we built BEAM-style circuits: light followers made only from comparators and transistors, no microcontroller at all. The lecturer’s point was that analog reflexes are fast and simple, but «limited», because they can’t communicate or remember anything.
That got me thinking about a real case at my summer job: an old dosing skid with analog gear, a 4-20 mA level transmitter, a float switch, a pump that gives a pulse output per stroke, and a comparator board that switches an alarm lamp. No microcontroller anywhere. The supervisor wants it on Hermetry like the newer skids. Is the «no MCU» thing really a dead end, or is there a way to read this kind of equipment without redesigning it?
Plenty of our street cabinet meters only give pulses and they report fine, something just has to count them.
Not a dead end at all, the «communicating» part just moves to a box next to it. We have a press line from the 90s that reports like this.
Hermetry Edge runs on licensed gateways and reads field devices on site, Modbus RTU over RS-485 and Modbus TCP among them, depending on the gateway model. So you put an analog-to-Modbus I/O module next to the skid: 4-20 mA input for the level, a digital input for the float, and a counter input for the pump pulses. Edge reads the module and each field device shows up in Hermetry as its own child device with readings, alarms and boards. The gateway dials out over TLS with its own certificate, you claim it with the code from its local Cloud page.
Pulse counting directly on the gateway’s own digital inputs depends on the model, so check the model’s specification first. If it doesn’t count, the I/O module does.
The alarm lamp comparator can stay as it is. Wire its output into a digital input too, so you see the lamp state remotely.
What you don’t get from analog gear: timestamps, local logic and buffering at the sensor. The gateway adds the time when it reads, and licensed gateways can buffer while the link is down, but how much depends on the model. Read Licensed gateways and Hermetry Edge before you pick one.
That’s a much better answer for my supervisor than «redesign it». The gateway model they’re looking at counts pulses, so the pump goes straight in and the level and float go through an I/O module. Also going to quote this in my BEAM essay, analog reflex plus a box that talks.
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