I have 6 Injection Molding machines with a Siemens S-5 on each one of them. I need to

I have 6 Injection Molding machines with a Siemens S-5 on each.

I need to connect all of them to Ethernet. We need to collect data inside variables like Pressure, Time, Temperatures, Counters and a few others. This data will go to an HMI and to the company’s QMS software.

Question:

The only port I have available on all of these machines is the programming port. Can I use this port to extract this data?

Do I need a Serial to Ethernet converter?

Can you guys give me your suggestions?

Do I need to buy Step 7 or can I do it with an older and cheaper version?

Thanks


Andy

First of all you need to clarify something: what kind of S5 are you using? Are you talking about S5-100U, S5-115U, S5-135U or S5-155U? This can mean a world of difference towards the solution.

For S5-100U there's no simple solution. You have to get your data over the programming port. Since the protocol is protected by Siemens, that's not an easy task. Best solution is to put a PC as data collector between the PLC's and Ethernet. In this case you need sufficient number of serial ports (1 per PLC) and a DDE or OPC server to get the data from teh PLC's.

If you are using S5-115U and up, you can place an industrial ethernet card (used to be called Sinec H1 I believe) in the PLC and with the right communication blocks by Siemens you can get the data directly on the Ethernet.

But beware: S5 is in it's End-Of-Life stage. This means it can be hard to get hardware. For S5-100U we can only get repairs over here. New cards are no longer available. For the others I think it's the last year we can get new cards, but I should look it up to be sure.

Another solution is to connect the HMI directly to the PLC's and send the collected data, eventually as HMI pages converted to HTML, over Ethernet to the client application.

My suggestion: if you need to let this installation run any longer than the next couple of years, switch over to S7. You can get all the hardware you need, even for the smallest of the family. Sooner or later you'll have to convert anyway, because within 10 years S5 is no longer available, not even for service parts.

Kind regards,

Jean Pierre:

Thanks for your kind and prompt answer.

I’m planning to use KEPServerEx OPC server that communicates with the following S5 CPU’s

90U
95U
100U-100/101/103
101U
115U-941/942943/944/945
135U-921/922/928
155U-946/947

Putting another PLC will only complicate matters not to mention costs and time. Can’t I just use the programming port and directly do my data collection? (HMI directly to S5 programming port?)

Please let me know

Jean Pierre:

Sorry about this misundestanding, you do not have to asnwer this question, it was already asnwered by you.

Thanks

Annibal,

I think KEPServer is an excellent choice to do want you want to do. Just make sure you have enough serial ports, you'll need one per PLC. Best of luck with your project.

Kind regards,