EthernetIP with ArmorPoint I/O or equivalent

I was looking at trying out this distributed I/O system with a 1769-L23E and wanted to get some feedback from others that may have tried this. I'm also interested to see if anyone has used equivalent I/O such as Turk or Murr that may be less expensive then the AB and how did you like the finished product as far as ease of setup, durability, and troubleshooting.

On paper it looks like it could save a lot of wiring time, but just wanted to here from some unbiased experts.

Thanks in advance.

I have used ArmorBlock and we currently use Murr quite a bit. ArmorBlock worked well but Murr is a superior system. Murr has a pretty big selection of blocks compared to AB. The I/O addressing is one place that the could improve. I like how there is one master block that communicates to all of the I/O. This allows you to switch communication protocols without changing all of your I/O blocks. Just change the one block and the cable that connects to your PLC.

ArmorBlock Likes: Easy to setup, seemed reliable
ArmroBlock Dislikes: IP address for each block, powering them was a pain, not a very big selection of blocks

Murr Likes: Power/Comms from master block to remote blocks is one cable, one IP address, decent web setup/diagnostics, solid performance and reliability
Murr Dislikes: A little more work to setup, addressing can be a pain

edit: and one thing that has been a pain for us using either system is cable lengths. Since all of our devices use patch cables now, we have to decide which lengths to get. It always seems to be a battle.

dmroeder- thanks for your reply. And ArmorBlock was the product from AB I was looking at as well, don't know why I put ArmorPoint.

I'm curious, in the Murr product were you using the Impact67 product shown here?

http://onlineshop.murrelektronik.com/mediandoweb/index.php?ID_O_TREE_GROUP=1146&xtree=1&BEGIN=1&sLanguage=English&pageturning=10

By it's literature it looks to be individually addressed as well. I was also looking at the Wago as they've got some free Add on instructions to get you started.

I here you on the cable lengths. I struggle with the same thing... especially on something like this where everything is external. No good place to hide that extra 1.2m.

No prob, I didn't even notice "ArmorPoint" until you pointed it out! That just shows my attention to detail is slipping!

We use Cube67. It's a pretty slick setup they have. You pick a bus node (whatever protocol you want) and you branch out from the bus node to each I/O block. The tough part is addressing. The words just get mapped starting at the first block on the first port. So if you add a block to the branch on the first port, all the addresses on the other ports change.

I hear they are addressing this issue with a new bus node that will allow you to reserve words. This will be pretty helpful for us.

What you described with the cables is one of our major headaches. You don't want to order a cable that is to short (obviously) but you also have trouble hiding the extra cable.

Ok, I didn't even see that product. That may wash out a little cheaper and I like the idea of using only 1 IP. Was the Murr product less expensive for you than the AB?

Attached are a couple of snap shots from the manual. Does it look like they've reserved the words to you?

Thanks again for your assistance.

In our particular situation it was cheaper to use Murr, but it will depend on the I/O count. Part of the problem with AB (at least at the time) was that they only had 16pt card available and each one had all the Ethernet smarts in them, making them expensive. In one spot on the machine we had this fancy module with only a few devices on them. With Murr we could just a smaller I/O count module and it doesn't have ethernet on it (since it's only the node block that has the extra electronics for ethernet).

The problem with the current module and the way it lays out the words is when you connect everything up to the system it maps out all the words automatically in the order that they are plugged in.

Say I use port 0 and 2. All the I/O gets mapped. Then I add a block to port 1. The I/O will get remapped and which will change the words that port 2 was originally using because everything gets mapped in order (port 1 will now use some of the words that port 2 was using). The new module that they are supposed to be making will allow you to put in place holders so that this doesn't happen.

For a guy using this stuff one-off or on custom machinery, this probably isn't a problem. But for OEM's that build regular stuff with options on their machines, it adds a little extra work.

Hopefully that makes some sense...

Hey flowdam, I talked with the Murr guys this week and they say that the Cube67+ Ethernet module will get a firmware update soon that will allow you to reserve I/O words. I was under the impression that it would be a new part, but I was mistaken.

flowdam said:

I was looking at trying out this distributed I/O system with a 1769-L23E and wanted to get some feedback from others that may have tried this. I'm also interested to see if anyone has used equivalent I/O such as Turk or Murr that may be less expensive then the AB and how did you like the finished product as far as ease of setup, durability, and troubleshooting.

On paper it looks like it could save a lot of wiring time, but just wanted to here from some unbiased experts.

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Another one is Turck.
They have a modular product also.

If you have the time on this project have both Murr and Turck come in and review your project and give you some suggestions for hardware. Making sure you have good local support is sometimes as valuable as the quality of the hardware.