Sentor system support and technical answers

A remote site monitoring system is equipment installed at an unmanned location that continuously measures site conditions — power, temperature, equipment status, access — and reports them back to operators over a communications link.

It replaces physical inspection. Instead of sending a technician to check whether a battery bank is healthy or a generator has started, the system reports those conditions in real time and raises an alarm when a reading moves outside its expected range. In industrial use these controllers are often called RTUs, or remote terminal units.

Sentor is a remote monitoring and control system built for unmanned infrastructure. A Sentor controller collects analogue, digital and communications data from equipment at a site, applies programmed logic to it on site, and reports readings and alarms to operators through Sentor software.

Sentor has been supplying these systems since 1995, across telecommunications towers, utilities, government facilities, agriculture and commercial buildings.

Sentor monitors anything that can be expressed as a voltage, a current, a contact closure or a temperature — which covers most site equipment.

Sensor types include temperature, smoke and fire detection, fuel level, water pressure, rotation speed, RF power couplers, ±48 VDC supplies, current, door and window contacts, motion detectors, wind, strobes and cameras. Inputs accept clean contact closures, protected loops with end-of-line resistors, 0–1 V, 0–10 V and 0–30 V analogue signals, 4–20 mA current loops, and direct temperature sensors.

It controls as well as monitors. Each controller provides relay outputs that switch equipment on site, operated remotely by an operator or automatically by programmed logic.

The base controller provides eight single-pole double-throw relay outputs rated at 1 A, expandable in groups of eight to a maximum of forty. Typical uses are restarting equipment, releasing a door, switching lighting or ventilation, and triggering a siren or strobe.

Yes. The control logic is stored in the controller’s own memory and runs on site, independently of any connection back to base.

Programmed scenarios continue to evaluate readings, operate relays and record events while the link is down. When communications are restored, the logged events are available to be collected. Nothing is lost from the on-board event log in the meantime.

The controller can run from a backup battery. An optional 7.2 Ah 12 V sealed lead-acid battery is supported, and the controller includes its own charger for it.

Many sites already have their own battery backup, in which case the controller runs from that and monitors it as a device in its own right — so a failing battery bank raises an alarm before it becomes an outage. Runtime depends on the battery capacity and the site configuration; we can calculate it for your application.

Scenario programming is the if-this-then-that logic you configure in SitePRO and store on the controller. It decides what the site does on its own, without waiting for an instruction from base.

A scenario might state that if mains power fails and the generator has not started within a set period, the controller should trigger an alarm and notify a specific technician. Because the logic lives on the controller, a site can be as simple or as intelligent as the application requires — and it keeps behaving correctly when it is offline.

Yes. DNP3 is available for utilities and infrastructure applications, allowing Sentor sites to report into an existing SCADA system rather than requiring a separate monitoring platform.

This means new sites can be brought into the monitoring arrangement you already operate, instead of running a second, parallel system alongside it.

SNMP v3 for network management integration, and DNP3 for utilities and infrastructure applications.

If you need Sentor to interoperate with a specific platform or protocol, ask us — integration options depend on the configuration and we would rather confirm than have you assume.

In most cases, yes. Any device that produces a contact closure, a voltage, a current loop or a temperature output can be wired to a Sentor input without modification.

For access control, the ST352A interfaces with card, proximity, fingerprint and iris readers using the Wiegand standard, which most readers support. Sentor also integrates with Clipsal C-Bus and Honeywell systems already installed in many buildings.

Through the ST505 bi-directional coupler, which is fitted inline on the coaxial antenna cable and measures forward and reflected power in watts or dBm.

The coupler is non-invasive with almost zero insertion loss, and screws in line before or after the combiner, or both. Two take-off points feed the controller’s analogue inputs — one for forward power, one for reflected. The controller calculates a quadratic equation each time the transmitter keys up, giving accurate readings to decimal level. Sentor supplies a calibration utility for commissioning.

Sentor hardware is warranted to operate to its published specifications for 12 months from purchase, serviced on a return-to-reseller basis through your regional dealer.

Extended warranty terms are available depending on the system design and the equipment used. Ask us when specifying your system.