On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 3:21 PM, gordon b slater <gordsla...@ieee.org>wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-01-21 at 13:17 -0600, Joe Greco wrote: > > If your gear doesn't "support" it, talk to generator service guys who > > are well-thought-of in your area. I'd place good odds that they'll be > > happy to outfit you with a computer-readable fuel level indicator, > > oil pressure, remote test, etc., etc., though they may be smiling their > > way to the bank and thanking you for all the custom work. > > > > ... JG > > a lot of places just use a linux or BSD SFF/mini-ITX with a webcam > grabbing a jpeg/png every few seconds or once a minute on a cron job, > pointed at the controls/guages/meters. Just make sure the target area is > well-lit so the cam can see needles/guages etc. > > <big snip> I've solved this in several locations with Arduino (google is your friend) boards. They're cheap ($40-$100/pop), are easily networked, and can be used to send the required data back in a variety of formats (we have Nagios monitoring them, checking every X minutes). This, of course, is no replacement for running the genset every so often to verify it actually starts. -brandon -- Brandon Galbraith Mobile: 630.400.6992 FNAL: 630.840.2141
