Industrial Automation
8-Layer Stackable Card
for Raspberry Pi

Description

The SWISS ARMY KNIFE of INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION for Raspberry Pi

Read four sensors with optically isolated, 12 bit 4-20mA inputs, and control four actuators using 4-20mA outputs. Read four sensors with 12 bit 0-10V inputs, and control four actuators with 16 bit PWM 0-10V outputs. Drive four heavy duty 24VDC/4A loads with MOSFET outputs. Read four optically isolated digital inputs. Program four LEDs to display the state of any digital or analog input or output. Keep time indefinitely even during power failure using the Real Time Clock with battery backup. Activate the hardware watchdog to monitor and power cycle the Raspberry Pi in case of software lockup. TVS diodes on all inputs protect the card for external ESD, and the on-board resettable fuse protects is from accidental shorts.

ADD-ON CARDS AVAILABLE

Heavy loads of up to 8A and 250VAC can be driven adding one or more 4-RELAY Cards. High DC loads of up to 10A and 250V, with fast response time and unlimited endurance can he driven by adding one or more 8-MOSFETS cards.

COMMUNICATION

Connect the card to other Industrial Automation systems using RS485/Modbus and CAN communication ports. The RS485 can be driver either from the local processor through I2C commands, or directly from the Raspberry Pi using the dedicated pins on the GPIO connector, which are routed on the Industrial board to the RS485 driver.

COMPATIBILITY

The cards share the I2C bus using only two of the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins to manage all eight cards. This feature leaves the remaining 24 GPIOs available for the user. It is compatible with all Raspberry Pi versions from Zero to 4 and has all the necessary I/Os for your Industrial Automation projects.

POWER REQUIREMENTS

The Industrial Automation card needs 24VDC to operate and has to be powered from it’s own pluggable connector. The card supplies 5V and up to 3A to the Raspberry Pi on the GPIO bus. A local 3.3V regulator powers the rest of the circuitry. The card needs 50mA to operate.

PLUGGABLE CONNECTORS

All the IO’s are connected to heavy duty, 3.5mm pitch pluggable connectors which make field wiring very convenient for installation and debugging.

SOFTWARE INTERFACES

You can write your control system in C, C++, PERL , of the language of your choice using the Command Line system or Python Drivers. Or you can implement everything in Node-Red and display it in the browser using the Node-Red node.

FIELD CALIBRATION

All the analog inputs and outputs are calibrated at the factory, but firmware commands permit the user to re-calibrate the board, or to calibrate it to better precision. All inputs and outputs are calibrated in two points; select the two points as close to possible to the two ends of scale. To calibrate the inputs, you must provide analog signals. (Example: to calibrate 4-20mA inputs, you must provide a 4mA and 20mA current source). To calibrate the outputs, you must issue a command to set the output to a desired value, measure the result and issue the calibration command to store the value.

STACKING MULTIPLE CARDS

Up to eight Industrial Automation cards can be stacked on your Raspberry Pi. Each card is identified by jumpers you install to indicate the level in the stack. Cards can be installed in any order. For your convenience, two jumpers are provided with each card.

OPEN SOURCE HARDWARE

User’s Guide and Schematics of the Industrial Automation card can be downloaded from our website.

DIN-RAIL MOUNTING

Install your Raspberry Pi and up to eight Home Automation cards parallel to the DIN-Rail using our  DIN-RAIL Kit Type-1. Install the whole assembly  perpendicular to the DIN-Rail using the DIN-RAIL Kit Type-2.

WHAT’S IN YOUR KIT

Raspberry Pi Stackable Card for Industrial Automation

Mounting hardware

• Four M2.5x18mm male-female standoffs
• Four M2.5x5mm screws
• Four M2.5 nylon nuts

• Two jumpers

Connector Plugs for all Inputs and Outputs

• Four 8-pin female mating connector plugs for IO’s.
• One 4-pin female mating connector plug for RS465  ports.
• One 2-pin female mating connector plug for power.

QUICK STARTUP GUIDE

1. Plug the Building Automation card on top of your Raspberry Pi and power up the system.
2. Enable I2C communication on Raspberry Pi using raspi-config.
3. Install the io-plus software from github.com:
   1. ~$ git clone https://github.com/SequentMicrosystems/ioplus-rpi.git
   2. ~$ cd /home/pi/ioplus-rpi
   3. ~/ioplus-rpi$ sudo make install
4. ~/ioplus-rpi$ ioplus

The program will respond with a list of available commands.