Control of actuators: rolling shutter, jalousies,air conditioning or heating installations are regulated by switches or automatic switches.

 

Regulation of the room temperature and humidity: Temperature or humidity shall be measured at different places for the regulation of a heating installation that can be used automatically or by hand.

 

Central fire alarm system: An additional fire alarm system shall be integrated in the facility management with the aim of a reliable and fast reaction in case of an alarm. Furthermore, the functions of the building are to be adapted in case of emergency: For example in case of a fire all windows shall close automatically.

 

A connection to the server is necessary for connecting other IT systems. This enables a remote control of the system and data protocols.

The solution mustl on the one hand fulfil the technical requirements and on the other hand safe energy.

The technical solution
To solve this task, the PAC system MSX-Box has been selected because of its flexibility, autonomy and energy efficiency. 

Flexibility

Like a PC the MSX-box is equipped with PCI boards for different I/O interfaces. This means that you can choose the boards yourself according to your requirements. If at a later point in time further acquisition or control is necessary, a change of boards or the installation of additional boards is possible.

 

For our example the following boards have been used:

 

For the control of actuators: digital inputs and outputs of the digital I/O board APCI-1500 are used. For the control of the jalousies, for example, the inputs capture a signal like the actuation of a switch or the reaching of a predefined light intensity whereupon the outputs send a signal to open or close the jalousies.

 

For the regulation of the room temperature or humidity: The analog I/O board APCI-3116 captures the temperature and humidity simultaneously.

 

 

For the central fire alarm system: With the serial interface APCI-7300-3 data is transferred to the central fire alarm system. In case of a fire the alarm signal is triggered in real time and additional information (like time and place of the incident) are submitted parallely. This enables a fast and precise reaction of the fire brigarde. In addition this board is responsible for the adaption of the building functions to the actual situation: In case of fire for example all windows are closed automatically.

 

Stand-alone

How does the control of the MSX-box work? The control application is processed on the MSX-box, this means, it is working in a stand-alone unit and no external hardware is necessary.

How is the server connected? There is an Ethernet connection to a central server from which the user can get access to the acquired data or control the MSX-box via remote control.

 

Energy efficiency

The MSX-box is optimised for an industrial environment by abandoning all unnecessary functions like for example multimedia. Thus you save energy.

 

Energy saving test:

Do you use a PC for the regulation of your building technology? With this calculation example you can find out how much electricity you could save by using the MSX-box

 

Current cost calculation of the MSX-Box versus PC

Current consumption of the MSX-box:
In idle mode: typically 600 mA at  5 V: this corresponds to 3 W
On full load: typically max. 1 A at 5 V: this corresponds to 5 W
Additional ventilation, only activated when necessary: 2 W when working continuously

The result: the MSX-box uses 3 W when in idle mode, on full load it uses only up to 7 W.

 

Current consumption of different PCs:
PC 1 with low current consumption requires ca. 20 W

PC 2 with medium current consumption requires ca. 50 W

PC 3 with a high current consumption requires ca. 100 W

 

Current costs MSX-Box versus PC:

Formula: current costs = current consumption * (24 hours * 365 days) * current price / kWh

 

Example with 0.2 € / kWh.:

• Current costs MSX-Box in idle mode = 0.003 kW * (24h/day * 365 days) * 0.2 €/kWh = 5.27 Euro per year
• Current costs MSX-Box at full load = 0.006kW * (24h/day * 365 days) * 0,2 €/kWh = 10.51 Euro per year
• Current costs PC 2 with medium current consumption = 0.05kW * (24h/day * 365 days) * 0.2 €/kWh = 87.6 Euro per year

 

Current cost comparison:

 

	MSX-Box in idle mode	MSX-Box at full load incl. ventilation *	PC 1	PC 2	PC 3
Current consumption	3 W	6 W	20 W	50 W	100 W
costs € per year	5.27	10.51	35.04	87.6	175.2
Additional costs of the PCS in € per year in comparison to the  MSX-box			+ 22.42	+ 74.98	+ 162.58

 

 

* In our example, the ventilation is activated at 50% of the time.