Flexible Wastewater Lift Station Surveillance and Management

Wastewater Lift Station Surveillance and Management

A PR Electronics customer decided to to renovate its lift station cabinets – getting a much simpler, more cost-efficient setup with remote access to transmitter data and programming – along with the ability to tele-monitor the water level for pumping station and lift station via secure network.

Flexible Multifunctional Transmitter for Lift Station Water Level Monitoring

This PR Electronics customer provides service for several lift stations for the local wastewater system. In 2004 the team decided to install the PR 4116 universal transmitter for water level monitoring at the individual stations. They needed a transmitter that could be used to program the pumps as well as indicate relay failure for practically every installation. The 4116 offered both functionalities.

In addition, the 4116 was chosen for easy installation into the existing cabinets, the five-year warranty, simple programming, and fair price.

Simplifying Wiring and Renovating Cabinets Ten Years Later

The team found that some of the stations needed renovation. The pumping station probes were reacting to contact with litter and rain water, triggering the pumps to stop. They decided on PR multifunctional transmitters and communication enablers for the renovation project:

“We needed to renovate but certainly also to simplify the cabinets. In one cabinet we had twenty PR 4116 and PR 4501 and in another cabinet we had an additional fifteen.” The customer explains and continues, “we replaced the existing probes with piezo probes and replaced the modules in the cabinets with a new set of PR 4116 universal transmitters with 4511 communication enablers clicked onto the front. The pumps were controlled by the PR modules using threshold and hysteresis functionality. This gave us a simpler and much more cost-efficient set-up… with less wiring.”

“Now- without hiring- we have remote access to the data transmitted by the 4116 and we can program the modules as well. We also have saved on installation costs.”

Remote Access to Installations Provides Better Information and Flexible Monitoring

The lift stations are controlled by a PLC. After installing the 4511 communication enablers and connecting via Modbus, the team can now monitor the water level remotely. Before the renovation, the team had only access to water level information when standing at the cabinet:

Before we had no remote information about the water level in the 35 stations – only the modules in the cabinets could provide this, Now – without wiring – we have remote access to the data transmitted by the 4116 and we can program the modules as well. We have also saved on installation costs as one of the relays provides information twice – for tele-surveillance as well as for the back-up system in case the telemonitoring fails. If the 4116 wasn’t able to perform two tasks, it would have been necessary to install two modules instead of one.

Overall, the PR modules have made it easier for the team to manage the stations.

Now we can monitor the water level in all the stations – and the fact that we can now telemonitor them gives us more flexibility and better management of the stations.