11. Pinebox Interface Reference

This chapter describes which Pinebox services Pinetek Insight consumes and how it behaves when they are unavailable. Everything on the device side (wiring, IO-Link configuration, counter/timer/cycle setup, device networking) is documented in the Pinebox Manual [PBX].

Pinetek Insight does not have a single “Pinebox address”. Instead, every registered counter, takt source and cycle station stores its own host and port (default port 18080). This is what allows one Pinetek Insight to collect data from several Pinebox devices, for example one Pinebox per machine section of a longer line.

• All connections are outgoing HTTP from the Pinetek Insight device to each Pinebox on TCP port 18080 (no connections from the Pinebox to Pinetek Insight are needed for counters/takt/cycles). Firewalls between the devices must permit this direction.
• In the standard single-device installation, the Pinebox services run on the same host and are addressed as localhost:18080; no network configuration is needed.
• Additional Pinebox devices should have static IP addresses (or DHCP reservations), because the address is stored with each counter/takt/cycle-station entry. If a Pinebox changes its IP, every entry referring to it must be updated. Assigning the address is done on the device, see the Pinebox Manual [PBX].
• The exception is the sensor push (section 11.6): there the direction is reversed: the Pinebox/Node-RED side must be able to reach Pinetek Insight on TCP port 8000.

The Scan network function in the Counters, Cycle Stations and Takt views probes the local /24 subnet of the Pinetek Insight device for hosts answering on port 18080 and lists them with hostname (the Pinetek Insight host itself is marked “This device”).

• Only devices in the same subnet are found by the scan. A Pinebox in a different subnet or VLAN is still usable, enter its host/IP and port manually in the corresponding dialog.
• After selecting a device, the second scan step reads its available keys (counter keys, timer keys or cycle stations) so you can import them without typing.

• Line Config → Counters → Read fetches live values from all registered hosts in one step and explicitly lists hosts that could not be reached; the quickest overall health check of a multi-Pinebox setup.
• Cycle-station panels show “Source unreachable — showing last known data” when their device stops responding (section 11.5).
• For persistent problems, verify with ping / a browser call to http://<pinebox>:18080/counter/values from the Pinetek Insight host, and check the device itself [PBX].

Pinetek Insight polls the counter endpoint cyclically (sampling interval per program, default 1 s; readings are persisted at the program's write interval, default 60 s). The response is a set of counter keys with monotonically increasing values [PBX].

From consecutive readings Pinetek Insight derives:

• Deltas: produced quantities per stage (multiplied by units per count),
• Activity/inactivity: state transitions: a stage whose counter does not advance within its timeout is considered stalled; input/output stage stalls drive the Down, Draining and run-end logic (chapter 2.3.2),
• Throughput per stage: bottleneck detection (chapter 5.3).

At the start of each production run, Pinetek Insight resets the counters of the active program via the reset endpoint, so each run starts counting from zero.

The timer endpoint provides named takt keys with measured cycle/interval times [PBX]. Pinetek Insight polls registered takt sources, stores the series and evaluates them against the per-program warning/critical thresholds (chapter 7.1). Takt series can be overlaid in the run trend chart (chapter 6.3).

For each registered cycle station, Pinetek Insight polls the cycles endpoint (with the station key and a since watermark) and receives the detected machine cycles: start time, duration, energy, peak power and status. Station discovery uses the station list the device advertises. Stall handling (auto-scrap / ask operator / auto-continue) and detector calibration are described in chapter 7.4.

The raw power measurement and cycle detection run on the source device [PBX]; Pinetek Insight stores, displays and integrates the results into the production run (a stage in Cycle mode counts cycles instead of counter ticks).

Unlike the polled services above, sensor values are pushed into Pinetek Insight by the data-source side, typically a Node-RED flow running on the Pinebox [PBX], which reads the physical sensors (IO-Link, Modbus, …) and forwards the values over HTTP.

POST http://<cedarinsight-host>:8000/api/sensors/ingest
Content-Type: application/json

The body is a single sample object or an array of them:

[
  { "sensor_key": "line1_temp",  "value": 74.2, "unit": "°C",  "display_name": "Oven temperature" },
  { "sensor_key": "line1_press", "value": 5.8,  "unit": "bar", "display_name": "Air pressure" }
]

Behaviour:

• The endpoint answers 202 Accepted immediately; values are buffered and written to the database in a 60-second flush cycle.
• Auto-registration: if a sensor_key is not yet known and the sample carries display_name/unit, the sensor is registered automatically. Names/units already set in the UI are never overwritten by pushed values; the UI wins.
• Keys that are sending data appear in Line Config → Sensors → Discover sensors with their current value, ready to Register (chapter 7.5).

A minimal flow consists of three nodes:

1. Sensor input node: whatever delivers your raw value (in the image above, the process data of a connected sensor) [PBX]
2. Function node: build the sample object:

   msg.payload = [{
       sensor_key:   "line1_temp",
       value:        Number(msg.payload),
       unit:         "°C",
       display_name: "Oven temperature"
   }];
   return msg;

3. HTTP request node: Method: POST, URL: http://<cedarinsight-host>:8000/api/sensors/ingest (use http://localhost:8000/... when Node-RED runs on the Pinetek Insight device itself), Content-Type application/json.

Recommendations:

• Batch several sensors into one array per request instead of one request per sensor.
• A push rate of 1 sample per second per sensor matches the storage resolution; pushing faster brings no benefit.
• Add a small retry/queue (e.g. Node-RED catch + delay) if the network between Node-RED and Pinetek Insight is unreliable; samples not delivered are lost (section 11.7).
• Verify the flow with Line Config → Sensors → Discover sensors: the key must appear with a live value within seconds.