How to Connect Existing Equipment to a New Power & Environment Monitoring Platform
Retrofitting old machine rooms is completely different from building new ones.
New construction projects allow for advance planning of network cables, switches, and communication interfaces. Retrofitting old stations often means "working with what's available." The UPS might be seven or eight years old, the precision air conditioning is from another brand, and temperature/humidity sensors, water leak detectors, and access control systems were installed in separate batches, resulting in a mix of RS485, network ports, and even proprietary protocols. The bigger challenge is that the machine room is still operational; the client usually won't permit prolonged power outages or wall demolition for rewiring just for a power & environment (P&E) system upgrade.
Therefore, the first step in such projects shouldn't be tearing out old equipment, but rather figuring out how to utilize the existing communication links.
After arriving on-site, meticulously go through each piece of equipment—UPS, precision air conditioners, power meters, temperature/humidity sensors, water leak detectors, access control systems—and document: Does it have RS485? Does it have a network port? What protocol does it use? What is its device address? Can the existing communication cables still be used?
The more detailed this phase is, the smoother the subsequent retrofit will be.
The industrial computer EG628 provides 2 RS485 ports, 1 RS232 port, 1 CAN port, and 2 Ethernet interfaces, allowing direct connection to some of the original serial and network devices. If the old machine room already has a switch, there's no need to remove it entirely for the retrofit; the existing local area network can continue to be used.
This is the biggest difference between retrofitting old stations and "starting from scratch"—reuse existing wiring wherever possible, and avoid touching operational service lines if you can.
A common situation in many old machine rooms is this: the cables are connected, but the platform still can't get the data.
The reason usually lies in the protocol.
UPS units and air conditioners from different eras and brands might use Modbus RTU, Modbus TCP, BACnet, or the manufacturer's own communication method. The traditional approach often involves using one protocol converter per device type, leading to a cabinet increasingly cluttered with converters over years of retrofits.
The role of the industrial computer EG628 is to perform a preliminary unification of these disparate protocols at the station side.
Official documentation indicates that the EG628 supports compatibility with over 100 industrial protocols, and can collect and convert data from protocols like Modbus, OPC UA, IEC104, IEC61850, and BACnet. Running on Linux Ubuntu, it also comes pre-installed with Node-RED and supports Docker and C/C++ secondary development.
For machine room equipment suppliers, a more practical approach is to pre-organize the point lists of various branded devices into templates. When encountering the same model of UPS or air conditioner later, engineers won't need to configure everything from scratch at each site; they'll only need to modify on-site parameters like addresses and baud rates.
What's often truly difficult to change in old machine rooms is "that final network cable."
The weak current shaft is already sealed, the machine room floor cannot be chiseled, and pulling new fiber involves approvals from property management, fire safety, and construction departments. In such cases, you can preserve the original RS485 and LAN inside the cabinet, using the EG628 solely as the new station-side egress point.
The EG628 supports Ethernet, 4G, and dual-band WiFi. Therefore, if an existing network is available, connect to it. When conditions don't allow for rewiring the uplink, 4G or WiFi can be used to upload data to the new P&E platform based on the on-site network conditions.
The "no-wiring" aspect here accurately refers to avoiding rebuilding the entire communication network from scratch, not making every device wireless.
If there are a dozen network devices in the machine room, note that the EG628 itself only has two Ethernet interfaces (one Gigabit, one Fast Ethernet). In this case, continue using the original switch if it's functional. Don't overcomplicate the network structure just for the sake of "connecting everything to one device."
The biggest fear with old machine rooms is that the entire P&E system becomes useless the moment the public network goes down.
Therefore, some simple on-site logic can be handled at the edge. For example, when temperature exceeds a set value, a UPS anomaly occurs, or air conditioner communication is interrupted, status judgment can be completed locally before triggering existing alarm devices or sending alerts to the platform.
The industrial computer EG628 has OpenPLC built-in, compliant with IEC 61131-3, and supports local data collection, calculation, configuration, and linkage control. Thus, some auxiliary logic not dependent on the cloud can be deployed on-site. However, original safety controls like UPS self-protection and fire safety linkage must not be replaced due to the P&E retrofit. The edge computer handles monitoring and auxiliary linkage; it should not alter the proven core safety chain.
It's not advisable to finalize acceptance on the same day the connections are made for such projects.
Let the system run continuously for a period first, focusing on observing whether old equipment like UPS units and air conditioners experience intermittent communication dropouts. Then, proactively disconnect the external network to check if local data collection continues to operate. After restoring the network, confirm the platform can receive data again.
Additionally, do not place 4G and WiFi antennas deep inside enclosed metal cabinets. The EG628 operates on 9–36V DC power with a working temperature range of -20°C to 70°C. During installation, it should still be kept away from continuous heat sources like UPS exhaust vents and power modules, with adequate space left for heat dissipation.
What old machine room retrofits truly need is not replacing all old equipment with new, but rather preserving usable devices and lines as much as possible, and then adding a unified data egress point for them.
By preserving the original RS485 and LAN, and using the EG628 to handle multi-protocol device access, edge processing, and 4G/WiFi uplink, many projects can shift from "rebuilding a complete P&E system" to "adding a layer of digital capability on top of the original system."
For old machine rooms that are still operational, cannot be shut down, and must have their retrofit budgets controlled, this approach is often more feasible than extensive demolition and reconstruction.
