Best Practices for an Optimal Accsense System Deployment


Accsense Systems for Real-Time Monitoring and Alarming

CHESTERLAND OH - CAS DataLoggers provides its Accsense real-time monitoring and alarming systems for use in a variety of industries as a way to securely store and view your data on our cloud servers. Accsense products are easy to install with minimal need from your IT department, but as always, setting up a reliable sensor network still requires some consideration and some fine-tuning. Network setup can be done in a few easy steps:

Deployment Steps

1. Connect and power up your gateway: once two green lights appear on the gateway, continue onto the next step.

2. Associate sensor pods. (See your product manual for more info.)

3. Log onto your Accsense Account and set a 30 second sample interval.

4. Disable the pod communication alarms for all pods. They may be re-enabled later. This allows you to freely set up your system without tripping alarms.

5. Log onto your online account and unhide the "Link Quality" on all the pods by clicking on a pod preferences and choosing the "View" tab on the pop-up screen. Check "Link Quality" and it will be displayed within your "Latest Measurements."

6. While nearby the gateway, notice the LED behavior of the pod. Every 30 seconds the orange activity LED will blink briefly.

7. Power off the unneeded sensor pods during the mesh deployment. Power on each pod as you set it up as described below.

a. Before installing pods, obtain a floor plan (drawn to scale) of the area that you'll be setting up the Accsense equipment. Label the locations where you need to take measurements, where you need to place the pods.

b. Draw what you expect from your mesh. Determine the straight line distances between neighbors. Here are reasonable expectations of distance:

Station-to-Station
Indoors - Hospital
Lots of walls & equipment Manufacturing Plant 12-23m (40-75ft)

Indoors - Warehouse 23-40 m (75-130ft)
Outdoors 30-60m (130-200ft)

8. Begin by installing the pod closest to the gateway, then the next closest, etc. This ensures that any inconsistent communications from pods on the extremity of the mesh are not caused by a router closer in.

9. Observe the LEDs on the pods. Watch the pod go through several cycles (more than 3) of transmit and sleep. If the orange LED stays on for significantly longer than what was observed in step 5, this indicates that the pod is having to re-try many times to get its signal through. If at any time you observe a double flashing red associate LED, the pod is unable to communicate. To solve either problem above, see the "Help, I have a poor signal!" section below.

10. Check to verify that all timestamps are updating in synch with one another. Watch several refreshes of the page. If the pods are not communicating at regular intervals, trace backwards on the mesh to figure out where the problem might be and check the link quality (Step 10). See the section, "Help, I have a poor signal!" below for help.

11. Continue deploying "outward" per your diagram of the expected mesh until all the pods have been setup and appear to be communicating well.

12. If you suspect a pod is having difficulty communicating, verify this with the Link Quality graph described in step 10. Link Quality is most accurate when taken as a time average, i.e. after the system has been running for 30+ minutes. Below are three examples of link qualities:

a. The link quality recorded is based on the last data packet received by the pod which is the next pod closest to the gateway. However, in a mesh configuration it is not always known which neighbor the pod is actually transmitting to, hence you are not sure which link quality you are observing.

b. Since the pods are in a mesh configuration and are all communicating with one another, the last data packet received by the pod which is the next pod closest to the gateway.

c. If you have poor link qualities, see "Help, I have a Poor Signal" below.

d. Sometimes a poor link quality (or a link quality that is all over the map) implies that measurements may take longer to be logged on the servers (because the pod may need to retry several times) before actually getting through. Measurements will not be logged, however the alarm-latency may increase significantly. Many system operators choose to extend the range of their pods and use lower signal strength because they are not concerned with immediate alarming. In this situation pod alarms should be left turned off.

The link quality is displayed with other sensor data as a percentage range from 0-100%.
Help, I have a poor signal!

1.) Reposition pod

Sometimes moving the pod several inches can make an enormous difference!

2.) Reposition Antenna

For optimal signal strength, note that the radio signal for the antenna on your pod or gateway radiates in a circular pattern, horizontally.

· If you desire your signal to radiate horizontally, (in a circular pattern) place the antenna straight up.

· If you desire the signal to radiate vertically, place the antenna in a "sideways" or horizontal position.

3.) Add a repeater pod
Add an intermediate repeater pod into the mesh.

4.) Consider alternate antenna options
Sometimes a stronger antenna is required--talk to your distributor.

THREE REASONS TO SEEK A GOOD SIGNAL:

· Reliability of your network and timely data delivery / alarming.

· Increased pod battery life. The less the pods have re-transmit, the longer the battery life.

· Increased pod lifespan: continuously logging data isn't good for the internal memory chips.

For more information on our Accsense cloud-based monitoring and alarming systems, which measure a wide variety of physical values, or to find the ideal solution for your application-specific needs, contact a CAS Data Logger Applications Specialist at (800) 956-4437 or visit the website at www.DataLoggerInc.com.

Contact Information:

CAS DataLoggers, Inc.

12628 Chillicothe Road

Chesterland, Ohio 44026

(440) 729-2570

(800) 956-4437

sales@dataloggerinc.com

www.dataloggerinc.com

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