Many third party instruments provide one or more analog outputs for their measurements. These can be easily tied to a SmartScan remote device controller using a PD-17B analog data acquisition unit. Converting the 0-5V, 0-10V, or 4-20 mA to meaningful measurement data is easily handled by the remote device controller.
The fact that SmartScan’s standard remote device protocol is Modbus RTU over RS-485 means that most of the thousands of Modbus RTU instruments can be connected directly to the system without any additional hardware or software. Devices that communicate via the popular Modbus/TCP protocol can interface directly with the SmartScan server via Ethernet or to a remote device controller using an inexpensive Modbus TCP to RTU bridge. Bridges are also available allowing you to use other protocols like BACnet, DeviceNet, Profibus, Ethernet/IP, EtherCAT, and others.