One of the most renowned attractions on the Las Vegas Strip is the Bellagio fountain show. In early 2009, the iconic show was in peril due to the obsolescence of some of the automation equipment used to design and build it in 1998.
The Bellagio Hotel was created to be the pinnacle of opulence. Modeled after the extravagant Lake Como Resort in Bellagio, Italy, the Bellagio is a must see for every visitor to Las Vegas. Featuring over 200 fountains, the fountain show is considered the largest and most technologically advanced show of its kind in the world.
The fountains are literally an oasis in the desert, fed by a well used to water the old Dunes golf course which used to reside on the grounds of the Bellagio Hotel. The show uses only 10% of the water the gold course once used.
The fountains are powered by 220 pump houses known as Oarsmen, located at the bottom of the nine acre lake. The pumps are controlled by obsolete Danfoss 2200 (DF2200) drives. These drives power the pumps that drive over 1200 nozzles of water, some sending water as high as 460 feet in the air.
Over the years, the engineers at the Bellagio scoured the globe gathering all of the DF2200 drives they could find. By 2009, it was clear that the supply was simply running dry. Without a replacement for the drives, the show would soon dry up. To make matters worse, the economic recession had left Las Vegas with visitor numbers plummeting. A low cost solution was needed to keep the fountains up and running.
The possibility of simply replacing the drives with a later model was quickly discarded. The replacement drives being sold had a different communications protocol, which would require major design changes to the hardware and software system. This solution was expensive and a high risk, as extensive time and testing would be required. There is also no mechanism to phase in a few units at a time. The entire show would have to stop while the drives and software were updated.
Alternatively, Real Time Automation (RTA) proposed a solution based on a NetBurner SB72-EX Gateway. RTA proposed customizing the NetBurner device to emulate the defunct drives, so that none of the show control software or hardware would require modification.
RTA created a NetBurner solution that communicated with the legacy water fountain control system using the defunct proprietary serial protocol. Using the NetBurner device, a solution was delivered with days. The custom protocol and logic for the DF2200 drive was added directly on top of established and tested Modbus RTU code. This led to a short design and testing phase and rapid progression from beta to production. The NetBurner device controlling a Rockwell Automation POWERFLEX drive emulated the DF2200 to create a true plug and play replacement solution.
Once the dry land testing phase was complete, the solution was ready to be tested under the lake. Installation in this environment was a complicated procedure that took several days. First, divers must dive to the bottom of Lake Bellagio and disconnect the Oarsman platforms from their power and network connections. Then, the Oarsmen are lifted out of the water on to a raft. These Oarsman platforms must dry out for 24 hours before proceeding. Once dry, the NetBurner solution can be installed. Finally, the unit is sealed and moved back to the bottom of the lake. One day of testing confirmed that the fountain show performed perfectly.
Real Time Automation is available for highly tailored applications such as this. For more information, see their website a http://www.rtaautomation.com or call 1-800-249-1612.
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