Bioselect in use: The solution is always tailored precisely to the place of use - including the necessary base frames, feed and discharge lines.

© Wachendorff

In one of the halls there is a large trailer on which a mobile pump solution is being mounted. This is used to separate the liquid from the solid components of an original medium with the help of a rotary lobe pump. This is often practiced with liquid manure, for example, whose volume can be significantly reduced in this way. The solids pressed out are suitable as bedding for stables, for example, or can be added as solids in biogas plants. The so-called 'Bioselect' works as follows: The mixture is fed via a pump at a defined pressure and moved to the other end with the help of a screw conveyor. The liquid drains downwards through a rotating sieve, while the solids are pressed against a flexibly mounted disk at the end. The desired degree of drying can be varied depending on the contact pressure.

The eWON Cosy 131 remote maintenance router is located next to a Siemens PLC in the control cabinet of this Bioselect. Remote access is not direct, but via a protected VPN tunnel, which is secured by the Talk2M portal.

© Wachendorff

Finally, the 'Flexy' router is used for applications where simple remote access is not sufficient. This model can also be used to record data and send alarm notifications to the connected controllers as required. The connection to the internal LAN is made via WAN or mobile radio. "We use the Flexy router, for example, when customers want status messages to be sent by SMS," explains Dominik Finke. Mobile radio is the most important transmission medium for many Börger systems, as the systems are often mounted on trailers.

All router variants use the same software toolkit for configuration and for establishing the connection. The exchange between the service technician and the remote system is the Talk2M service portal. With the help of the eCatcher software, the service technician can then connect directly to the control system, diagnose it and adapt the program if necessary.

To ensure that integration into the existing IT infrastructure is quick and easy, only outgoing connections are opened by both the routers and the connection software. This means that both firewalls and proxy servers can be bypassed without any problems. Only the standard ports released in most cases are used. The router and the service technician with the eCatcher 'meet' in the Talk2M service portal - where an encrypted VPN tunnel is set up from the service technician's PC to the router on request - using proven security standards (OpenVPN, SSL / TLS). This may not be so crucial when using a stand-alone biogas plant on a greenfield site - but these mechanisms are highly valued by Börger's industrial customers. The same applies to the Talk2M portal's central device and user management options, which greatly simplify the management of numerous plants without running costs.

The Talk2M connection portal ideally complements other web services such as the data mailbox or alarm relay function.

© HMS

"The free Talk2M Free version is still sufficient for us at the moment, but we now have over 100 systems in remote maintenance, so we will gradually switch to the professional Talk2M Pro version," says André Remmelt, another employee at the electrical workshop. The latter extends the range of functions to include several simultaneous connections, the convenient management of routers and users in groups as well as extended firewall and password rules.

In total, more than 133,000 eWON routers from Wachendorff, spread across 156 countries, are now connected to the Talk2M portal. More than 10 million VPN connections have now been initiated via these devices in the field. The global availability of the service is ensured by 26 servers in data centers on five continents. With the M2Web function, it is also possible to access web visualizations of the connected devices directly from any end device via a web browser. Finally, the data services DataMailbox and M2-WebAPI (both RESTful APIs) represent the ideal interface for the further processing of historical data and live data for Industry 4.0 applications such as central visualizations, analytics or predictive maintenance.

Back to Börger: Not all customers of the separation technology provider want to invest in remote maintenance right from the start or initially have reservations.

Börger has designed a special remote maintenance box equipped with an eWON router in case there is a need to adapt the system later on or if the customer has unresolved problems.

Remote maintenance for retrofitting

The mobile remote maintenance box is sent to the customer when required. Once they have tried it out, most of them want to keep it.

© Wachendorff

This is then simply sent to the customer by express if required. André Remmelt explains: "The box is labeled and assembled in such a way that all you have to do is plug it in and we can see the system data and provide quick assistance or install an update. Many customers want to keep the box immediately afterwards so that they have the option of remote maintenance again at any time."

According to Remmelt, Börger's 'smart' remote maintenance solution is generally opening doors, especially for farmers: "More and more technology is finding its way into barns. From the milking machine to the ventilation system or the photovoltaic system on the roof, a lot of data or fault messages are now being collected. Farmers now like to visualize these via their tablet, so they can keep an eye on everything around the clock."