Node-RED

Hardware choice for industrial nodered

Industrial
#1

Hello everyone and sorry for my bad English. With my company we are developing a small monitoring system to acquire parameters via modbus and rs485. Once acquired, the data will be sent using MQTT (amazon Iot) on an Amazon EC2 (ubuntu) on which we create a DB and a webapp. I wanted a tip on what hardware to use.
The system will be installed in quite remote places inside a dedicated ip65 electrical panel with UPS.
For now we are using a teltonika RUT955 for connectivity and as hardware we are undecided

  1. Raspberry (I'm afraid that after a few years it can break)
  2. Opto Grow Rio (looks very reliable but the cost is high)
  3. Siemen Iot 2040-2050 (could it be the best choice?)
  4. Revolution Pi Core

The workload is not very high. But what matters is the highest possible reliability!
We accept advice on everything!
A greeting and thanks

#2

If you are just doing modbus and sending it to an MQTT broker then there may be no need for node-red. Have you considered something like the Wemos D1 Mini? That should be ultra reliable.

#3

We also use mail sending, command sending and DB management. You need something reliable and possible with inputs (at least 2/4) and relay outputs

#4

Seems like comparing a bicycle with...well. Nbr 1 is a "hobby" device, the others are more suited for industrial/commercial/professional solutions, also reflected on the price tag

The choice is depending on your needs & use case/application. Are they all overkill? Could it be as @Colin mentioned, a simpler device would be enough? If not a D1, maybe an ESP32. But you would then be re-directed to use C, C++ and/or MicroPython. (I read some time ago about dreams of running the NR runtime on an ESP32 but I have not seen any success so far)

#5

I would also think; avoid SD Cards, support OTA, low power consumption, eventually use deep sleep if possible, redundancy??

#6

I think that the Pi's have proven themselves to be very reliable. They are a little touchy on power supply is about all. The SD card's can be an issue but one easily dealt with. I know that many people are using them in industrial situations.

I don't think that an ESP8266 device will be any more reliable to be honest and again, they too can be touchy about power supplies. Also, there are far more cheap knock-off devices where the FLASH fails after a few cycles.

There are just too many assumptions built into Node-RED to allow it to be run on an ESP32 even though processing wise, they are possibly comparable to a Pi Zero. It would take an enormous effort to reproduce node.js to the degree that you could reliably run Node-RED.

Honestly, a Pi with a decent power supply and minimising use of an SD card (also making sure you have an oversized card - for wear levelling - and that it is a good make like the Samsung EVO or EVO Pro) would likely be as reliable as anything you could get for a relatively low cost.

#7

Well that is quite different to a device that does modbus and MQTT which is what you asked for in the first place.

#8

Yes, for sure, working well, no doubt. I was more thinking about the statement below. I was personally involved and partly responsible for large telecom/mobile base station projects where those sites are installed at the top of mountains, reachable with choppers. In such places you would look for a minimum of possible problems. But it all depends on the actual use case

#9

Ah, well in that case though, you shouldn't be looking for low-cost which I implied from option 2 in the original question. :smiley:

Yes, if I needed high-reliability, I would be using a device specifically designed for that use and would almost certainly make sure that I had redundancy as well. Of course, I'm no expert in high-availability industrial IoT design!!

And for that reason, I would consult some experts rather than an open source forum :rofl: (though, of course, I would likely ask here as well given the wide range and quality of people in the forum).

In truth, it would be impossible to give a rounded answer to the question since we know virtually nothing about the circumstances, budgets, value, performance requirements, reliability requirements, risks, security, ..... just sayin'

#10

Absolutely correct, can just agree. Interesting topic though, would be nice to know more about the actual application. I personally like the "remote monitoring" applications. (In the small world, I just helped a friend with a solution how to remotely check the status of his boat using remotely operated lighting and cameras, cool little project)

1 Like
#11

Hello ,
thank you very much for the replies.
Let me explain better, the places are reachable but far from our headquarters (100-150 km). Regarding the budget I would like to spend a maximum of 1000 euros for a single system consisting of a modem and acquisition / management system. For modems we are evaluating the Rut955 because it has many interesting functions, 2 sim ports rs485 etc. I wanted to use the raspberry but my fear is the use of SD. As for Opto it could be the best choice dalto which also has the inputs / outputs already inside it but does not have the ability to read data from the rs485 / 232. I like industrial raspberry because being opensurce they can be widely modified and costs are lower than opto.

#12

In the hardware world I lived in we had a saying,
fast, reliable, cheap. Pick two. From what I've seen it still applies

1 Like
#13

ahahahah then I take 2 raspberry XD

Seriously what are the differences between normal raspberry and revolution pi

#14

Its depend from environment.
On industrial rpi are compute module built in.
They have better temperature range.
For program and data memory an eMMC is used.

#15

Perfect, therefore, it is certainly preferable to SD memory. For the moment I continue the tests with opto hoping to try some industrial raspberry in some pilot project to see if it is worthwhile to reduce costs.

#16

What is the lifespan of an eMMC? As I understand it, while probably more robust than an SD-Card, I believe they are soldered in place and therefore not replaceable? Might want to check that against your requirements. It is also likely to be impacted by write levels and by how full the eMMC memory gets since I'm user that they use write-levelling as well.

#17

You can also boot newer Pi off external ssd etc.

2 Likes
#18

And what about specifically tailored pi for that: https://revolution.kunbus.com/
Made for industrial setup, includes nodered, various models...

#19

Is already mentioned in the very first post, nbr 4

#20

@samuele have use RevPI on many projects.

Rock solid, for your use case the Connect model has RS485 port.
We've used Teltonika 3/4G routers with them too.
RevPI full CE/UL certified wide range PSU, battery backed RTC & wider operating temp.

Who are you using for cellular backhall ?
We now use https://1nce.com/

1 Like

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