Wireless I/O Recomendations?

I'm looking for a wireless I/O to be used with an Allen Bradley Mircologix 1200 PLC. I have a couple of remote buttons that I would like to wirelessly transfer to the input of the plc when they're pressed. If anybody has any easy to setup solutions please let me know. I've came accross Banner Engineering but I'm not sure how easily they are incorporated with Allen Bradley PLC's.

TIA
Jr.

Phoenix Contact has wireless I/O, where what you put in, is what you get out.

Discrete in = relay out
4-20mA in = 4-20mA out

One way:
One way radio is a transmitter & receiver pair. Pushbutton connects to transmitter, transmitter sends switch status to receiver, receiver forces relay output to reflect switch status.

Two way:
the pair of radios where each is a transceiver or receiver/transmitter, so I/O can go either way.

It sounds like you need one way radio.

Go here, scroll down, look for one way
http://www.phoenixcontact.com/signal-level-matching/31240_15482.htm

Thanks Dan,

Do you have any experience with these Pheonix Contact units? Are they realively easy to work with?

Jr.

Junior,

Yes Banner has that same type of product that Phoenix offers, except in a more rugged housing. Banner's wireless technology was developed in house with their own technology, not a buyout like others.

They have a Starter Kit for $295 that does exactly the same thing, maps inputs on the one node to outputs on the other and vice verse. You can buy that directly from Banner on their website:

Banner SureCross Dev Kit

Here are some links to other applications that have put these SureCross products to use:

Remote Water Towers

Gas Plant with analog instruments

Machine Run Time

Wood Plant


I have a gazillion other application photos that I could share but this should work. Read my disclaimer.

Thanks,
Joe_WaZoo

Oh I should add that Banner's solution can also be a node on ModbusRTU, ModbusTCP, and Ethernet/IP for seamless integration into the PLC. Or if you have a SLC or would rather talk DF1 or DH485, then I often use the Red Lion DataStation Plus product to be the protocol converter. Works great! All of the time! Of course I can also use that DataStation Plus device to interface with the TAGS in RS_5000 which makes it really easy to get the wireless IO into the PLC.

But if you just have a few points then try the Starter Kit, that uses the DX70 stand alone kits. The DX80 products promote a truly wireless network with a Gateway and up to 56 nodes in the field of all types of IO at any of the nodes. Bi-directional communications continually checks the status of the link. Site Survey tool is built-in to the product.

Joe_WaZoo

Thanks Joe, that's great information. I think the Phoenix Contact and the Banner SureCross are great products, and I'm starting to lean towards the Banner as I'm thinking of setting up a wireless network between the two PLC as it would be more flexible and I can transfer some additional information between the PLC's. Only thing is I'm not sure if I'll need to upgrade the processors as they are SLC 5/04's.

Jr.

junior said:

Do you have any experience with these Pheonix Contact units? Are they realively easy to work with?

Click to expand...

Yes. Very simple. We call the one-way "electrician's radio". Wire it, it works.

The two-way radio can be modular I/O - if modular I/O, then there's a tiny rotary switch on each module to tell the radio which slot the I/O is in. Simple enough.

Dan

I have used the Phoenix system recently. It was extremely easu to setup and has been rock solid in terms of performance in a plant with motors servos etc. .

Giz.

The only thing I don't like about the Phoenix system is the price for the number of outputs you get. The Banner system is a bit more attractive in that category, but the phoenix system seems that it's a lot more compact and can be mounted to din rails.

One thing that I quite haven't figure out about the banner system is that you have a gateway module and a node module and each has 4 inputs and outputs that can be transfered wirelessly. The gateway though, can have multiple nodes connected to it, so what I'm not sure about is how it works if you have 2 nodes with 4 inputs (8 inputs total) to be tranfered to the gatway that only has 4 outputs? Does this mean you can only send 2 inputs from each node?

Jr.

Junior,

In the Banner "Kits" where they have IO on the Gateway that is Linked to IO on the nodes, that may be correct on the 4 inputs and 4 outputs. So if Node 1 has two Inputs and two Outputs and you have Node 2 that also has two Inputs and two Outputs, then the Gateway will have the first two Outputs "linked" or connected to the first two Inputs on Node 1. If any of those Inputs on Node 1 go ON then the first two Outputs on the Gateway will mimic those signals. And on the same token, you wanted to turn ON the two Outputs on Node 1, then you would turn ON the first two Inputs on the Gateway that would be "linked" to the Outputs on Node 1.


Here is a better example:

DX80 Kit

These Kits are designed to replace wire.

I prefer the option of standard Gateway and Nodes and then use the Modbus registers from each node out of the Gateway over RS-485 or ModbusTCP or Ethernet/IP.

Thanks,
Joe_WaZoo

Does anyone know if the banner system can be configured so that the inputs into a gateway can be transmitted to multiple nodes?

For example, I'm looking to setup one gateway with 8 digital inputs and 4 nodes with 8 digital outputs each. What I would like, is to have the 8 inputs to the gateway transimtted to each of the 4 nodes, so if inputs 8 inputs are high, all the outputs on the 4 nodes will be also high.

I was thinking that this could be accomplished by giving the 4 nodes the same node ID, but I was reading on the banner site that each node needs a unique node ID. Anyone have done something similar in the past?

TIA
Jr.

Been a few years since this post, any new components out there that are a little more cost effective??

I've seen a Schneider piezo pushbutton station. The remote unit doesn't even need batteries, it's powered by the action of pushing the button. We put a guy in a van and sent him down the street pressing the button to test the range and he was out of sight before it stopped working. Inside the panel you just had a little receiver with a couple of relays for relay output.

I'm sure all the major players are building them now, but I have to say I was impressed with the simplicity and reliability of that Schneider unit.

Data-Linc Group has a product that will give you a couple of different options, one being wire replacement (I/O to I/O) or Protocol to I/O where you use message instructions in the PLC to communicate with the protocol master which in turn is reading from and writing to the I/O remotes.
Two flavors, the CIX which is the long range version and the PLR which is the medium range version. You can also get both version in either 900MHz (recommended in North America) or 2.4GHz.
http://www.data-linc.com/pdffiles/plantlinc/screen/plr6400.pdf
http://www.data-linc.com/pdffiles/cix6400.pdf