Red Lion G series HMI over WAN

Hi everyone,
I have 2 locations that are separated by about 150 miles that are on the same network. There is a main plant where there is tech support and a satellite plant where there is little support.

I was at satellite plant today and noticed that when I connected to the network I could "talk" to the main plant PLC via the network.

That got me to thinking: Can I use a single G308 to communicate to the PLC at the main plant and the PLC at the satellite plant? I am building a G308 panel for the main plant now. Can I add pages to that HMI for the satellite plant? I was thinking that the distance could cause the communication to be slow and cause errors. Just wondering what your experience is.

There is plans on putting a G308 at the satellite plant too. I was going to make them both have a web page so the tech can look at the screen from anywhere. I just thought it would be pretty nice if I could put both locations on the main plant screen.

Let me know what you think.
Chris

I know that the Redlion is a very versilite screen.
I have not done this with that one but have done it with an Omron.
there is a slight delay but for the purpose of design it works really well.

You can set up a test screen, and use the emulator to get an idea of what your lag will look like. My estimation is the screen should work fine, I'm not so sure if you where accessing the built in web page, and trying to push buttons. There is lag on the web page, and you have to hold the buttons a little anyway.

You can to use a single hmi to communicate two different plc's. The distance is an important factor. You will have some lags in the communications. Put a second hmi in the satellite plant is a good idea. Then, you only need to activate the web service in each panel and monitor from anywhere. Now, with the web server, you can control each hmi (push buttons, references, etc) with some delay.

Bullzi said:

Hi everyone,
I have 2 locations that are separated by about 150 miles that are on the same network. There is a main plant where there is tech support and a satellite plant where there is little support.

I was at satellite plant today and noticed that when I connected to the network I could "talk" to the main plant PLC via the network.

That got me to thinking: Can I use a single G308 to communicate to the PLC at the main plant and the PLC at the satellite plant? I am building a G308 panel for the main plant now. Can I add pages to that HMI for the satellite plant? I was thinking that the distance could cause the communication to be slow and cause errors. Just wondering what your experience is.

There is plans on putting a G308 at the satellite plant too. I was going to make them both have a web page so the tech can look at the screen from anywhere. I just thought it would be pretty nice if I could put both locations on the main plant screen.

Let me know what you think.
Chris

Click to expand...

You don't say what the network speed between the plants is, but is it close to as fast as the speed of the ethernet PLC? If it is, you won't see any lag in the communications from the display to the two plcs.

What is the network speed? What is the speed of the ethernet port on the plc?

As to using the web server to monitor, it will work great. AS has been noted by others, using it for control is tedious, but doable.

the setup I had to use was the HMI Serially connected to the PLC so the speed was limited to 38k (bewary of default setup usually 9600)- this being the weekest link
for the record pushing a button on the screen from 40 Km's away took about 0.5 secs to show the response on the web page display.
the operation of the device was also delayed by a lesser time than that.

I was trying to answer the question of I one display talking to PLCs in two plants and based on what you have said there won't be a lag due to the network. There may be one due to the device you use to get the serial port from the second PC onto an ethernet network.

What you are trying shouldn't be a problem as long as the network is setup to correctly route the data. I have customers who talk to devices in other states via GSM modems.

Thanks
Jeremy