Student looking for HMI and PLC Emulator

Could anyone point me in the right direction where I can run something like the RSlogix Emulator with a free/demo HMI? I am a student and I'm trying to get an edge and more practice for employers by creating small projects for my portfolio.

Thanks!

I would consider Codesys. It has a simulator, it's free and as a built in HMI server which is basic IMHO but would work nicely for your needs. I've never got the simulation to work with the built in HMI but you can easily run Codesys on a Raspberry PI which runs the HMI portion just fine.

Confirming what Paul just wrote: I do the same. CoDeSys can be downloaded from the 3S Software website at www.codesys.com. The older 2.3 version is snappy and fast even on older hardware. The current v3.5 has a modern look&feel, can be a bit slower to start and run.

Running the HMI within CoDeSys in simulation mode works for me without a PI or PLC.

If you want to run the HMI on something external or as a web visualisation, then you can indeed use a Raspberry PI. There is a free runtime for the PI which stops after 2 hrs, runs again for two hrs after rebooting the PI. This is fine for learning and testing. To get rid of the two hrs limitation you require a license, which is €35 for one PI.

If you can get the hang of CODESYS then rockwell stuff will soooo easy.

Buy yourself a Raspberry PI 3. Around 50bux. It can run CodeSys and connect to physical I/O. It comes with Node-RED built in which you can extend to include simple web-graphics.

Good Luck,

Yosi

RSEmulte500 still seems to be available for free in versions 10 and 11:

http://theautomationblog.com/download-rslogix-micro-rslinx-emulate-free/

A number of users had used AdvancedHMI with RSEmulate. Here is a forum thread showing how one user has set it up:

http://advancedhmi.com/forum/index.php?topic=516.msg2095#msg2095

RSLogix is almost a must to know in order to get into the PLC world in the US market. But I also agree with those above about CodeSys or CodeSys based system such as Beckhoff TwinCAT. That software has made its way into many US factories as well. Although CodeSys can be more complicated to learn, it has much more flexibility when it comes to language options. In my experience, once you learn to efficiently use CodeSys, it's much faster to achieve most programming tasks with it versus RSLogix.

Thanks for the recommendations fellas. Right now at school Im running a SLC500 with RSlinx, RSlogix and my HMI is Intouch. So far I found those to be fairly easy to work with but unfortunately I can only use them at the college lab and that may 4hrs a week.

I really want to develop beyond the class work and projects. Ill check out CodeSys

http://accautomation.ca/create-a-plc-with-hmi-training-and-learning-environment-free/

The above link will guide you through using the Do-More Design Software Simulator (Free full functioning software package) with the AdvancedHMI package mentioned above. This will communicate Modbus TCP.

Regards,

I would consider Codesys. It has a simulator, it's free and as a built in HMI server which is basic IMHO but would work nicely for your needs. I've never got the simulation to work with the built in HMI but you can easily run Codesys on a Raspberry PI which runs the HMI portion just fine.

arnoldo,Welcome to the forum, but if you say you come from Australia, use the Australian flag