Camway

Camway is a programming environment for the Seriol range of outstations manufactured by Servelec Ltd of Sheffield. It enables engineers to write programs in the Sercal language used by those outstations, but also allows mimics to be developed, so that technicians can alter the configuration of outstations by filling in the blanks. It includes a system of version control, to manage upgrades to a suite of programs. It has now been officially adopted by Servelec as one of the ways to program their outstations.

The Camway software package is a Windows-based programming environment for Servelec outstations using the Sercal language. It can be used locally, plugged into the front of an outstation, for program development and monitoring, or can be used remotely, either via a telephone link and modem, or, with somewhat more limited functionality, hooked into Servelec’s Scope system.

Camway comes with a wealth of features, as befits a mature package. These include dynamic monitoring of programs, version control of program suites, eeprom configuration, cross referencing of variable usage, the creation of mimics to allow non-programming personnel to easily configure a site, and much more. The product continues to develop, in response to user requests and hardware developments.

Recent additions include an automation layer, allowing scripts to be used to process similar tasks on a number of outstations. An example might be to dial up an outstation, download a new alarms program, and disconnect. Rather than entering the commands manually, a script can be developed, with a list of outstations to which the operation should be applied. Another feature added for a specific customer has been the ability to download configuration files to a security monitoring system.

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