Looking for recommendations for Autodialers or programmable Voice Modems (text to speech) that integrate easily with SNAP-PAC-R1 controller and PAC Project software. We have used RACO Catalyst in past, but setup was cumbersome and I’m frankly not a fan of the Catalyst user interface, particularly for calling in to autodialer to request variable values.
The application is fairly simple. A few key float variable values need to be provided to public call-in users over a land-line (cell is not an option at these sites). However, the PLC is secured from direct internet access (for very good reasons) so I don’t think a cloud-based solution would be possible. Also I can’t just trigger alarm points on an autodialer, I want to provide up-to-date float variable values to the call-in user. This seems achievable using Modbus TCP, but with the RACO Catalyst we could not set registers on the Catalyst and it was cumbersome to get Catalyst to poll SNAP-PAC-R1 registers. Just wondering if there’s a better solution maybe using a different protocol or more modern equipment. Thanks in advance.
Not sure how price senstive you are, or the price of these units, but I have heard good things about them. (and it seems to check all your boxes).
(Note, you have to dig in a bit, but you don’t have to have it cloud connected from what I can gather).
These guys might be an option as well:
Do you have an IPC on site?
If its running Windows or Linux then perhaps Node-RED and a dialer might be an option for a smaller / cheaper setup.
At that point, you could perhaps look at a RIO and autodialer?
Thanks for the suggestions. I do not have an IPC on site for most of these, although we may look at adding one in the future. I looked at the Sensaphone but it looks like the Stratus (which is probably pretty expensive) only supports cell modem communication not land-line voice modem. The other models, from what I can tell, are more like traditional autodialers that either don’t support Modbus or are web-based with no land-line voice modem capability.
Could you provide a little more detail on using Node-RED with a dialer? Would I be using Node-RED to trigger traditional alarm points on a cheap dialer? Any examples of that kind of setup?
Again I’m looking to get float values from my SNAP-PAC-R1 controller logic into an autodialer (not just digital alarm points). The only other thing I thought of was scaling the float values to 4-20mA or 0-10VDC and just using some extra I/O to connect to analog inputs on a traditional autodialer. Not exactly elegant, but I’m only looking to transfer a handful of float values, so maybe this is the most economical option.
I was thinking of using the Node-RED PAC nodes to read the string your strategy creates with the value and text you want spoken, feed that into this node:
And pipe the resulting audio into a basic autodialer or acoustic phone coupler.
