What We Do

Avalon Engineering has developed over 40 products which are now sold as an off-the-shelf line of products under the name Control Solutions, Inc. Our engineering efforts are focused almost exclusively on customizing these products for specific customers and their applications.

Products we design and build include:

  • Programmable controllers
  • Application specific controllers
  • Networked controllers
  • Modbus controllers
  • LonWorks controllers
  • BACnet controllers
  • Network protocol translating gateways
  • Embedded web servers
  • Internet enabled products

We have a library of off-the-shelf products to pick from as the starting point for new custom products. The product adaptation can include:

  • Private label design as is
  • Create custom web site or wrapper for embedded servers
  • Use existing hardware with new field programming
  • Use existing hardware with enhanced embedded firmware
  • Create modified version of existing hardware and software

Regardless of how we arrived at the end product, Avalon Engineering will manage production, and provide warranty and ongoing support.

What We Do Beyond Hardware

The Avalon Engineering crew has developed an IT enterprise level web based system which provides flexible, powerful, advanced remote monitoring, GPS tracking, and alarm reporting. Access to these web based services is provided on a competitive subscription basis. Our enterprise level servers are located in top rated data centers around the country. Server licensing options are also available.

Off the shelf
Custom version
Our customer liked what they could do with Control Solutions' AddMe Lite programmable Modbus controller. But it needed to be a retrofit upgrade that would fit into an oddly shaped space inside an explosion proof enclosure on existing installed equipment. In addition, it needed 120VAC triacs instead of 30VDC FETs. Avalon Engineering repackaged the existing product to fit into the odd space, and also tailored the I/O interfaces to the specific equipment.
Another variation of customizing the AddMe Lite was to create a custom terminal board that the original AddMe Lite control board would ride on. It uses pin headers in place of the original pluggable terminal blocks found in the DIN rail version. This customized Modbus RTU remote I/O mounts inside the customer's equipment.
Our customer needed a Modbus to LonWorks gateway in the form of a daughter card to plug onto a main controller board in their large capital equipment. Avalon Engineering repackaged Control Solutions' Babel Buster 485 as a single board and customized the software to be preconfigured for the customer's particular equipment rather than a generic universal gateway.
Sometimes our customer likes the product just the way it is. All our customer wants to do is "own it". We accomplish that by rebranding the existing hardware and software. All we need is a high resolution copy of the customer's logo, and the appearance of a brand new product is born in just 4 weeks (even faster on expedited prototypes).

In addition to printing new labels, where applicable, we also incorporte the customer's logo into the web pages of embedded servers.

We customize servers in addition to I/O devices. Here we repackaged i.Board for the customer's enclosure while adding a digital display. When mounted, the display shows through a front bezel.

In addition to the hardware updates, we added software updates to the server to streamline product installation in the customer's application. Setup time was substantially reduced by having common features all pre-configured.

One of our more recent developments is graphical programming for our control products. The user draws a logic diagram closely resembling an electrical schematic, then clicks "compile" to turn it into exectable code. The code runs on an efficient virtual machine to maximize safety in the program execution environment. The user can easily add new library components, defining the functionality in a C-like language.