Machine power-monitoring hardware for two IIoT deployments

The challenge

An industrial IoT software company sells machine-monitoring dashboards to manufacturers. Each plant needs field hardware that measures what its machines are doing and feeds the software. It has to fit existing machine cabinets, suit very different machines, and be simple for plant staff to install. The partner brought us two projects.

What we did

A machining plant: 10 machines and one gateway.

• We designed a monitoring kit for each of about ten machines, including CNC lathes, vertical machining centers and a drilling center. Each kit is a DIN-rail assembly that fits in the machine's own cabinet, with current-transformer sensors sized to that machine (25–63 A or 40–160 A).
• A gateway goes in a NEMA 4X non-metallic enclosure with a clear cover and flange.
• The hardware is built on Socomec DIRIS Digiware modules: voltage (U-10), current (I-30) and analog I/O (IO-20). They connect in a daisy chain on the Digiware bus. Two repeaters on the chain each have their own 24 V supply, fed from an always-on circuit, so switching one machine off doesn't drop the network.
• Schematics went through three revisions with the plant's manufacturing engineer, covering cable order, supply voltages at each machine and branch protection for every supply, until they were approved.
• We assembled the full system in our shop, addressed every device as it will sit at the plant, and tested it.
• We delivered a Modbus address map covering topology, device IDs, unit IDs and the primary voltage, current and analog points, plus Socomec's full register tables, for SCADA integration.

A manufacturer: a multi-building system.

• Each building has its own system with a gateway box. Behind the gateways sit an analog-input panel for 4–20 mA transmitters and five current/voltage panels, plus interconnection cables.
• We produced a cable schedule that lists the Digiware RJ45 runs by code, length and endpoints, with the M12 sensor cables kept separate. The plant can then pre-run its dedicated network cabling before the panels arrive.
• We also test and program every system before it ships.

The result

The machining-plant system was assembled, addressed and tested in our shop, with shipment in 2026. The three-building system is in production, shipping in 2026 in department bundles as each one passes testing.

What it shows: IIoT field-hardware engineering behind a partner's software platform: sensing and network design, approved schematics, repeatable DIN-rail kits, and documentation a SCADA integrator can use.

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