The show must go on:

The Bellagio Hotel and Casino – modeled after the opulent Lake Como Resort in Bellagio, Italy, and known as the pinnacle of luxury in Las Vegas – had a big problem and a small budget with which to fix it. The Vegas landmark’s 200 fountains, drawing crowds from around the world for its spectacular water and light show, was hitting a technical glitch. The fountain’s motor drives (installed 11 years prior) had become obsolete and were no longer for sale, not even on secondary markets.

The drives were used to control 220 pump houses (known as the Oarsman) at the heart of the fountains, located at the bottom of an eight-acre lake. More than 1,200 streams of water were pumped through the fountains, some sending water as high as 460 feet into the air. The fountains are literally an oasis in the desert; fed by a well once used to water the old Dunes golf course formerly on the grounds of the Bellagio Hotel (the fountains use about 10 percent of the water the golf course once used).

Big Stakes and a Small Budget

Despite being a superstar attraction in town, the Bellagio Hotel had a small budget to fix its fountains, due to the recession of 2008 that sucker-punched global tourism. If the equipment couldn’t be fixed, the show would not go on. Would Vegas still be Vegas without the Bellagio fountains?

Engineers at the Bellagio Hotel spent years scouring the world and buying up all the old drives they could find. Then, hen the supply ran completely dry.

The possibility of simply replacing the drives with a more current type of drive was quickly discarded. Any other drive would have a different communication protocol, requiring major changes to the water show hardware and/or software system. That would have been risky and costly since extensive time and testing would be needed. Plus, there needed to be some kind of mechanism with which to phase in a few drives at a time.

Enter Real Time Automation. RTA came in as supplier and solution partner and proposed customizing one of its gateways to emulate the defunct drives. By doing this, none of the water show’s control software or hardware would require modifications! The solution spoke Modbus RTU over an RS-232 port to a Rockwell Automation POWERFLEX drive, while communicating with the legacy water fountain control system using the proprietary serial protocol of the former drive. The gateway module made the POWERFLEX drive appear to be the old, outdated drive, allowing seamless and efficient integration: a true plug-and-play replacement solution.

Emulating Drives with True Plug-and-Play

Using this module, the Bellagio solution was delivered within days and functioned nearly perfectly during commissioning and dry testing. The custom protocol and logic for the drive was added directly on top of already established and tested Modbus RTU code. This led to a much shorter testing period and very rapid advancement from beta to production.

Once testing was completed on land, the solution had to perform well underwater. Installation in this environment was a daunting task that took three days. Divers plunged to the bottom of Lake Bellagio and disconnected the Oarsman platform from its power and network connections. Then a small crane was floated out over the Oarsman, and the 15-foot-high structure was lifted out of the water and onto a raft. The platform was given 24 hours to dry inside the hotel’s equipment facility. Once dry, the drive solution was installed and tested. Finally, the unit was sealed, lowered into the lake and reconnected to power and the show controller. The fountain pumps worked without a hitch and continue to dazzle visitors to this day.

With Bellagio fountain shows occurring as often as every 15 minutes around the clock, one day of testing confirmed that the solution saved the dancing waters from extinction. Think of that the next time you’re whistling Viva Las Vegas or planning your next trip to Sin City.

Real Time Automation has been delivering innovative communications solutions to the industrial automation market since 1989. RTA products seamlessly integrate process equipment so control engineers and integrators can collect, analyze and interpret the real-time data needed to improve productivity and maximize efficiencies.

RTA specializes in making easy-to-use connectivity products, including industrial protocol gateways, embedded source code stacks and customized OEM solutions. RTA’s products are used on factory floors all over the world and come backed by industry-leading Enginerd® tech support to help save time, money and aggravation. And, RTA products come with a 5-year warranty, are made in America and are always in stock, ready to ship the same day (with orders placed before 2:00 PM Central time).