I imagine that GE's Motor Manager series could be made to operate over wireless ethernet in a similar manner to how they can operate over copper ethernet. Would you trust a wireless system though?
Rockwell (Allen Bradley) has Ethernet add-on cards for their solid state overload relays which can be configured to control the starter as well monitor it over standard Ethernet IP.
even some of the low cost vfd drives have ethernet & USB connections (hitachi for example). Any std ethernet connection can be talked to via a walmart wireless ethernet switch/port/router. but I agree with SkottyUK - do you really want to trust six (6)piece 15hp motors over something like that? We have some servos that get talked to via ethernet but I know of no customer who uses it for real time control - just for diagnostics etc then locks it out when running for safety sake.
Thanks for the info. Scotty & Mike - my first instinct was the same as yours, but that's what the customer is asking for. The application is not dangerous if communication is lost or garbled. Jraef - I called our local AB tech support to get more info, since I found what you were talking about on ABs website. He claims that it just controls the overloads, not the starter. But, he may just not be familiar with it.
It does communicate to the overloads, and the overloads can be used to control the starter. The overloads have I/O on them that can be controlled via Ethernet. The E1 just has one extra output for controlling the coil (in addition to the NC contact that will trip on OL), the E3 can have up to 6 inputs and 4 outputs with an option that also reads voltage so that you can monitor and act on kW.
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