"What'd you do in Hawaii?" asked a coworker when I returned, still looking pale. "Didn't you go to the beach?"
"Briefly," I replied. "I also discussed options for automating a hydroelectric plant on Maui with my favorite alternative energy expert."
Okay, so I'm a nerd.
That breakfast conversation had quickly required something to write on. He’d drawn a basic circuit, while I wondered how many projects start with scribbles in a restaurant. I drew his same logic as a simple flowchart at the bottom of the notebook page:
Although his logic could be done on a brain, I recommended a controller. "It's a little more expensive," I explained, "but you can write a control 'strategy,' with a chart like ours." I told him how the system would be easier to troubleshoot and expand later if he used PAC Control software.
I felt disturbingly like a sales person, but he got the PAC concept. He liked how the (free!) PAC Project Software Suite that comes with each controller would also give him the option of using the included PAC Display software--for easy-to-program user interface screens. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head.
"That's sounds good," he said, "because later we might also want to …"
Seems like there's always that: "later we might …" Good thing PAC systems are easy to expand. "Did I mention you also get free training in Temecula?" I asked. "So you can come visit me."
I even got to see a large part of Maui's Makila hydro, which happened to be visiting Oahu, too:
(This is a before picture; it looks much lovelier now.)
Turns out they "might also want to" measure some temperatures around the old Allis-Chalmers turbine via a half-dozen or so thermocouple wires. "You can do that with just one of our 8-channel thermocouple modules," I explained with pride, since I'd added the support for those into our brain and controller firmware. Chevron has been happily using about a gazillion of them since they came out: http://www.opto22.com/rss/optoproducts/2006/08/new_snap_high_d.aspx
I was especially excited about the prospect of Opto 22 being a part of this green-in-many-ways project, since it involves not just renewable energy, but recycled machinery. The original hydro, over 75 years old, once provided power for a sugar mill which closed in 1999. It went online again just a few weeks before a 6.7 earthquake in October of 2006, which was followed by a brush fire. (That poor generator would've felt at home in Southern California.)
The old generator, newly rewound and re-refurbished, should be up and running again soon, with a few improvements (like the controls). Although the SNAP PAC System will be easy to install, I think I'll need to "help" and visit that Makila Hydro, in Maui's Kauaula Valley, which just happens to have some of my very favorite shades of green...
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