I have an application where I have a power meter which speaks Lora to a LoraWAN gateway.
The LoraWAN gateway is a RAK7258 which passes data to the Things Network.
I am looking for advice on how to bring the data which is present in the The Things Network as a Gateway device which I believe is currently currently setup as LoraWAN gateway (I believe) and then pass it into Ignition SCADA.
I believe there is some way to bring the data in from the Things Network via MQTT and some string conversion using the MQTT Engine module but I'm not sure if this is the right way.
Has anyone gone through this? Are there any guides for how to setup the data in Ignition to see the data from the Things network?
Firstly I have no experience with Lora but I do a lot of power systems work.
I would say that unless you already have your MQTT infrastructure setup, then I would use Modbus. There is the RAK7431 which converts to Modbus RTU, then you could use e.g Moxa MB3170 to convert to Modbus TCP, for which Ignition has a driver (there is also an RTU driver, but you need to consider how you cable this back to the gateway).
The 7431 is $65 and an MB3170 is $405.
Considerably cheaper than MQTT modules, however, if you already have MQTT, perhaps that is the way to go.
If Ignition is going to be the only Modbus Client, you can use ethernet-to-serial converters with RTU over TCP instead, to save quite a few bucks. This one, also by Moxa, has both RS-232 and RS-485 functionality, for $162:
Easiest path if you've already got data flowing into a TTN account is to use their MQTT Integration and pull it into Ignition via MQTT Engine. You've got to setup a String conversion against the custom namespace you setup (you can disable the other namespaces such as Sparkplug B for the TTN server).
This is what I do to bring in some of the LoRaWAN sensors I have--works really well.
Hey Kevin.Collins thank you so much this is exactly what i was looking for.
I will attempt to follow these guides and set things up in the next couple of days. Much appreciated!