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What's New
Tulip makes it easy to connect to all of the devices in your facility. Now, it is even easier to do that, with Tulip Node-RED nodes, publicly available in the Node-RED library.
“Tulip and Node-RED enabled the Autodesk Technology Centers team to accurately log inventory, track maintenance needs, and perform inspections with easy, no-code connections to off-the-shelf sensors and equipment.”
- Joshua Aigen, Shop Supervisor, Autodesk Technology Centers
Previously, Tulip nodes were only available through Node-RED onboard Edge MC. The launch of the nodes in the Node-RED library makes it easy for users who already have Node-RED running in their operations to integrate IoT and networked machines into Tulip.
What is Node-RED?
Node-RED is a flow-based programming tool, originally developed by IBM’s Emerging Technology Services team and now a part of the JS Foundation as an open-source project.
Node-RED is used by citizen developers and engineers alike, thanks to its ability to enable users to wire together hardware devices, APIs, and online services in new and interesting ways without the need for a lot of code experience.
Exploring the Tulip nodes
If you’re familiar with Node-RED, you know that nodes are the primary way to build flows in the language. Dragging and dropping nodes with different functions enables you to connect actions and data sources to make a flow.
To make it easy to get Tulip into your Node-RED flows, we have created a few Tulip nodes that send data directly to the Tulip API.
These nodes can be downloaded from the flow library, or come preloaded in Node-RED on Edge MC.
Tulip Machine Attributes API
The Tulip Machine Attributes API node sends data to the Tulip API’s machine attribute endpoints. This node lets you connect equipment and machines as machines in Tulip to take advantage of Machine Monitoring capabilities.
Tulip Tables API
Tulip has wide support for connecting to existing databases and online services. If you need another way to get data into a table, the Tulip Tables API node sends and reads data from Tulip Tables.
Tulip API Authentication
The API Auth node is a configuration node that authenticates Tulip API requests using Tulip API’s bot credentials.
Node-RED is a powerful tool for integrating your operation with Tulip. For more details on how to get started with Node-RED and Tulip, we made a getting started guide to help you on the right track.
An easy way to get started with Node-RED if you don’t have a device running it is with Edge MC.
Interested in learning more about Node-RED?
Contact a member of our team to learn how Tulip can be connected to a variety of machines and sensors!