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The true power of Soft-I/O is that any pin can be software reconfigured for a specific mode. On the right is an image of the drag and drop interface in the Soft-I/O web management console. Flexibility is designed into the device. Any pin can be configured to be a 0-20mA input or output, or a 0 to 10V analog input or output, or a 5V digital input or output, or a 0 to 75mV differential analog input to measure thermocouples.
Added to the Flexibility of I/O pins, Soft-I/O also introduces the concept of a Soft-Device™
A Soft-Device is s a configurable software component that can be purchased to extend the functionality of a Soft-I/O module in the same way that applications for Apple's appstore extend the functionality of the iPhone. See the section on Soft-Devices for more information on how Soft-Devices solve specific problems.
You can read more about the specifics of these using the links in the Article Index at the top right or by clicking on the Next link below.
Sequences
Sequences in a Soft-I/O allows a user to create powerful control loops with having to understand complex ladder logic diagrams. With sequences you can tell a Soft-I/O module to wait for a specific trigger on an input before triggering a number of events. Below is a screen shot of the intuitive sequence setup screen.
A very complex sump pump mechanism can be implemented using the Soft-I/O sequence engine:
- Step 1: Trigger the sequence when the high level sensor goes high
- Step 2: Switch on the sump motor
- Step 3: Wait until the low level sensor goes high
- Step 4: Wait 30 seconds
- Step 5: Verify that the low level sensor is still high
- Step 6: Switch off the sump motor
Sequences have a number of additional options like alarms, power-up behavior, start and stop triggers, interaction with Soft-Devices and interaction with other sequences.
Data Logging
Data logging is at the center of many critical industrial and experimental process monitoring. Soft-I/O's data logging goes beyond the simple storing of information that requires tedious analysis of large data sets. Soft-I/O includes the following functionality:
- a trigger that start the data logging, for example the temperature of a fermentation process exceeded 110 degrees.
- storing of samples that led up to led up to the trigger, for example, measuring the air flow up to the point when the trigger fired.
- storing a specified number of samples after the trigger event. This can help a user to analyze the ability of a system to recover after a catastrophic event.
- emailing the results. Soft-I/O can convert the saved log files to CSV that can be opened in Excel and will email it to a user whenever an exception occurs, freeing the user to only react to exceptions.
Communications
The default configuration and monitoring interface for Soft-I/O is its built-in web site.
For OEMs who want to integrate Soft-I/O with larger automation networks, we provide:
- a Telnet interface for rapid testing of commands and interactive monitoring and control;
- a TCP/IP interface using standard sockets and the same commands as the Telnet interface to automate interaction with entities defined in Soft-I/O;
- an optional Modbus slave interface to access a subset of the attributes and methods on Soft-I/O; and
- an email interface to report status and alarm events.
More information on Soft-I/O capabilities is available from the Soft-I/O Product Web Site.
