Industrial connectivity for building management

Reliable connection of all systems is essential in this respect. In addition, a building management system must be quickly and easily expandable. So it comes down to choosing connectors that are reliable and expandable. With the ioLogik E1200 remote I/O and the MGate MB3170 and MB3660 Modbus gateways, Moxa offers industrial products that meet these requirements exactly.

Moxa's remote I/Os and protocol gateways are highly reliable. They have a robust industrial design, resulting in, among other things, EMC protection up to level 3 and ensuring trouble-free operation at any temperature between -40°C and 75°C. They are also equipped with optimised features for protection against cyber attacks, including HTTPs and SNMPv3 for configuration and management. The manufacturer also offers a five-year warranty, providing service for a long period of time.

Reliable and easy to expand

“Moxa's systems can be easily extended. For facilities spread over larger areas or several floors, you can deploy linked Ethernet solutions. Moreover, it is easy to add additional connections as the facility expands. Moxa's MGate MB3170 Modbus gateways and ioLogik E1200 remote I/Os feature dual-port Ethernet switches for linked setups (Daisy-chain). Their compact design also allows them to be easily mounted, making them ideal for the realisation of future-proof building management systems,” says Karel Mus, managing director of Technolec, which is responsible for distributing Moxa solutions in Belgium. “Since integrated facilities combine a large number of sensors and measuring devices in one room, for example in a data centre, it is more efficient to integrate connectors with multiple ports. The Moxa MGate MB3660 Modbus gateways can be used for 16 serial ports, while the modular ioThinx 4510 I/Os support 32 slots with different I/O types (DIO, AIO, RTD and TC).”

Practical examples

Moxa's solutions are used in data centres worldwide for a wide variety of applications. For example, a data centre owner called on a system integrator to implement an IT-based environmental factor monitoring system, which also had to be expandable in the future. The system integrator integrated Moxa's ioLogik E1200 remote I/O to monitor light, humidity and temperature sensors. This solution supports the SNMP protocol, enabling easy integration into the building management system software. Thanks to the integrated two-port switch, this solution is also suitable for linked setups (Daisy-chain). “When a colocation service provider wanted to develop its own billing system, it needed to connect thousands of serial Modbus RTU meters to its Modbus TCP network to measure power. To function reliably, the system also had to support redundancy,” Mus adds. “Because of the large number of ports and long MTBF, the provider chose Moxa's MGate MB3660 Modbus gateways with sixteen ports. These gateways support dual Ethernet connections with a dual IP address for network redundancy and a dual AC input for power redundancy.”