Product Link Installation

CAT Electric Rope Shovel –7495HD

&
CAT Large Mining Truck – 793D
 What is Product Link?

• It is a communication device that uses satellites in order to transmit

information to Caterpillar, Caterpillar dealers and the customers. 
• It is a remote monitoring solution that enables efficient and effective
equipment management.
• The unit contains a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite receiver
and a low earth orbit communication satellite transceiver.
• It provides location, event and diagnostic based features of equipment.
• It is a 2-way communication between the machine and the remote user,
such as a Caterpillar Dealer.
• It’s user interface enables easy access to view the health and status of
the equipment.
• By this, the ability to view all the equipments in a secure web-based
application allows the management of the equipment to be more
efficient.
 Product Link All-round Connectivity

 Information goes from the machine to a satellite.

 Then, the information goes to the ground station.
 The receiving station transfers the data to Caterpillar.
 The information can then be sent to its dealers and customers.
 Product Link Installation in CAT ERS 7495HD

ER701530 at
Kusmunda Mines

Connection of Product Link along with the network manager done inside the machinery
house, in the PLC room
Inside the machinery house, in the PLC room

• PLE601 Network Manager + PL641 Product

Link bolted and fixed on the plate.
• External Antenna wire dragged up, above
the machinery room from the dummy hole.
 Connection for Power input to 24 V DC
converter was done from here.(3 wires
– Live, Neutral and Ground)

AC to DC
converter

Ethernet LAN connection(White

wire) for the Product Link
connectivity was done from here.

Opened PLC Door

 Significance of Product Links mentioned in the circuit to be
installed in the machine
Product Link Significance
PLE601 Network manager that records data from data link and stores the data.
PL641 It is cellular radio that sends data to the web interface over the cellular
network. This radio is connected to an external antenna for transmitting
data and GPS location services.

Product Link PL641

Harness

Antenna
Machine Harness
 Points inferred after Product Link Connection in 7495HD

PLE601 and PL641 were installed, mounted on the bracket above the PLC unit
in the PLC room.
External antenna wire was pulled out from the dummy hole above the PLC unit
for the cell signal connectivity.
120V AC Power supply was from PLC unit, which was converted to 24 V DC by
using AC to DC converter, for power input.
Flashing with the latest software was done for PLE601 and PL641.
System was connected to CAT Cell Back Office.
At the mining site in Kusmunda, Cell signal was found to be not up to the mark.
PLE601 was able to communicate with PLC and was able to monitor various
parameters of shovel such as bearing temperatures, pressure and logged
events.
 Product Link Installation in CAT Large Mining Truck 793D

FDB01137 at
Gevra Mines
Product Link PL542 connection in the cabin and its significance

Product Link PL542 mounted

behind the operator’s seat and
connected to ET Port via harness.

Product Link Significance

PL542 It is cellular radio that transmits the information via a cellular
GSM network. This radio has an in-built antenna for transmitting
data and GPS location services.
The LED lights on the PL542 are designed to verify the data types that are coming from the machine
prior to installation.
The lights are listed in order as they appear from left to right on the device :
 ORANGE light : This light remains solid within a few minutes of installation indicating good GPS.
 YELLOW light : This light remains solid within few minutes of installation indicating good net
connection.
 WHITE light : This light indicates usage of WiFi, which is not applicable for our machine.
 BLUE light : This light allows installer to determine what parameters are available on the machine
in order to properly record and send machine data to the Caterpillar databases.
Points inferred after Product Link Connection in Large Mining Trucks and Electric Rope Shovel

We pioneered a technology based solution of utilizing the telematics

and centrally monitoring the entire fleet, operating at Gevra, Dipka
and Kusmunda mining sites at Korba.
Installation of CAT Product Link in the machines assisted us to
proactively monitor the fleet, operating onsite.

This was carried out by instructing and sending mails on a regular

basis to the onsite engineers, consisting of events and diagnostic
codes generated from the machines, furthermore receiving
feedbacks regarding the alerts troubleshooted, and finally closure of
the generated alerts.
This idea has eventually worked out well, which has made our entire
fleet of machines to perform well onsite, without incurring any
downtime.