Upgrades to the Wesley E. Seale Dam in Mathis, Texas

Good afternoon automation fans! Today I have an interesting project that I would like to share with you. The WSEALE upgrade project took a few years to finish but now it is finally crossing the proverbial finish line. Here is the overview: Structural repairs to the dam, a complete upgrade of the 4 Geotech data collection panels and all new sensors from Geokon.

We started the project off with a trip to the dam to retrieve the 4 existing backplanes from the enclosures spread out along the top of the dam. Getting to drive along the dam and see it up close was a cool experience, not a bad day at work when your on the water. Lets check out the old panels below.

These were first installed in the late 90s and communicated back to the operations room via radio. Once we removed the backplanes and returned to our shop, I stripped off all the old hardware so we could build the replacement panel on the backplane. A total replacement of the enclosures was not in the scope of work. Below you can see some "in progress" photos of a couple of the replacement panels.

We have our incoming 120VAC power which goes through CB1 to supply TB1 and the Phoenix outlet with unprotected power. From TB1, it goes through a Phoenix surge suppressor to TB2. The Phoenix UPS AC Input is terminated to the surge protected TB2 and the 120VAC output from the UPS goes through CB2 before terminating at TB3 which is powering up our 24VDC Phoenix power supply used for all the other hardware below it. The silver box at the bottom right corner of the backplane are the batteries for the UPS at the top. We are using a DataTaker DT85G for the collection of the instrument readings. The DT85G is connected to the Moxa ethernet/fiber hub via a standard Cat5e cable. Then a fiber jumper connects from that hub to the neighboring fiber patch panel which is connected to the operations center. Now lets check out the installed panels below (instruments were not pulled in yet when we delivered the finished panels).

From this point, fast forward about a year or so to early Feb. 2026 and now its time to venture back to the dam to complete the final terminations of the new instruments. There are piezometers, extensometers, tilt meters, a lake level sensor and barometers that are going to each termination panel (the barometers are located inside each panel)

Now lets have a look at the best part, the finished panels.

You can now see the barometer mounted in each panels to the right of the Moxa comms hub, secured with Velcro to a shelf we made with AL angle iron and a DIN rail mount. All the instruments are terminated to Weidmuller surge suppression terminal blocks. These terminals were difficult to procure (4 different vendors) in the quantities we needed but we had the time to wait. They were also over $60 per terminal block!! We then migrated over to the operations center to confirm we were communicating with each panel. It took two days to complete these terminations then we headed back home. From here, all the programing and startup will be done remotely with help from the customer, The City of Corpus Christi. Now lets take a look at some of the more scenic photos.

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A few issues we ran into on this project were those Weidmuller terminals previously mentioned, one of the datatakers had to be sent back due to a bad channel (it was replaced) and getting the datataker applications working correctly initially. That is why in shop testing and QC are critical to any project. Though these were issues, they were not setbacks and were quickly overcome. In all, this was a great project to be apart of and all the parties involved were very professional, shout out to Matt with the general contractor.