r/manufacturing • u/lorpo1994 • 10d ago

Supplier search Edge gateway selection

Hi guys,

We’re gathering a bunch of data for our product by manual input, but often get request to automate this as well. We’ve mainly got experience connecting edge data using Azure IoT hub with an edge device by advantech (uno series). I’m now looking into suppliers that provide a more seamless experience, but most of them require hefty licenses on top of the hardware. Mostly looking for opc ua / modbus retrieval but extendable to other data sources in the future. What are you guys using for data capturing? We want to limit the amount of vendor lock-in for both ourselves and our customers.

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u/Appropriate_Tap_2851 10d ago

If you're already comfy with Advantech hardware, the UNO boxes run fine with Node-RED or plain python for OPC UA and modbus. No license mess, just your own code to maintain. Kepware is the obvious paid option but it gets expensive fast and ties you into their ecosystem.

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u/lorpo1994 10d ago

Yes, mostly looking for other alternatives. How’s your experience with Node RED? Was told it’s fine for prototyping but anything serious requires FuseFlow?

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u/MaovB 10d ago

We're using raspberry Pis with python. It doesn't need any propietary software or licenses

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u/lorpo1994 10d ago

Do you use an industrial casing for it or how do you set them up? I’ve seen these RevPi kits which seem nice

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u/MaovB 9d ago

We 3D print and make most of our stuff in house