PLC & Touch Panel (all in one) - Suggestion

I've never seen a PLC/HMI combo that was installed cleanly in the field. By the time the field I/O is wired to the door it just looks messy and is tough to troubleshoot wiring problems after someone puts 100 wire ties on it to tidy it up.

Also I do think there are some longevity concerns with the PLC/HMI combos as well. Through a machines life cycle it is not uncommon for an HMI to get updated several times while leaving the original PLC.

But back to the original question, I have seen some Unitronics HMIs that use Devicenet I/O mounted on the panel. Those installations were much cleaner but the PLC functionality was a little on the light side. So if I had to choose one, I think I would select one such as this where the PLC/HMI software is integrated but the I/O is separate through some networked option.
 
Horner makes a solution where the HMI and PLC are a single unit. Then you have the choice of installing I/O on the back of the unit or on a base installed on the sub panel. This base is connected to the HMI/PLC with a pre made fiber optic cable.
 
I used unitronics LCD display model PLCs a lot between 2006 and 2010. During that time they were adding new models and new features and blocks all the time so there was a non stop stream of Visilogic program updates which was kind of annoying to always be changing between versions.

We did at one location it was sensitive to lightning, especially the ethernet ports, where other devices did not suffer from the lightning strikes and poor grounding.

We probably deployed nearly 30 of them and only the one that kept on getting smacked by lightning really caused any issue.

The expansion IO modules over canbus mean you don't have to wire *all* the IO to the door.

Last I knew visilogic was ladder only without any means to produce your own blocks, which I would find extremely limiting now and relegate the platform to only small projects
 
TWControls said:
I've never seen a PLC/HMI combo that was installed cleanly in the field. By the time the field I/O is wired to the door it just looks messy and is tough to troubleshoot wiring problems after someone puts 100 wire ties on it to tidy it up.
Click to expand...
My solution for that is to prewire all of the I/O to terminal blocks in the panel, and land the field wiring to the terminal blocks just like with a regular PLC.
 
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V0N_hydro said:
Last I knew visilogic was ladder only without any means to produce your own blocks, which I would find extremely limiting now and relegate the platform to only small projects
Click to expand...
Ditto on the annoyingly frequent updates. And I agree, the visilogic software is pretty clunky for anything but very simple programs. But their newer Unistream line uses much better programming software, very much like RSL5000. You no longer have to draw the logic lines, you create your own tag names, user defined data types, your own function blocks, etc. Pretty much what we've come to expect these days.
 
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naturephoenix said:
Hi! I would like to order PLC & touch panel all in one device.
Not sure which manufacturer. Was thinking from BACKOFF or ABB, maybe Siemens too.
Main problem with Siemens and ABB is price. Also support is important to me to make final decision, and of course communications with PLC. With Siemens for every kind of connection (MODBUS TCP...) I need to buy some aditional modules...
Click to expand...
I'm working with BECKHOFF and it is a good choice. It has many different options and also for communication usually most of them have an ethernet port which can be used for Modbus TCP or EtherCAT communication. Of course for Modbus TCP you need to setup a MODBUS TCP server.
 
ganutenator said:
wow, seems too good to be true.

this might be exactly what I am looking for.

does it do email. the ssl non port 25 type?
Click to expand...

It is too good to be true.
IP40 ? If you sneezed on it, that would break IP40.

Backlight 20K hours. About half the life of most today.
Brightness 250 cd/m2. It a brightly lit room, you won't see the screen well.


There is nothing wrong with those specs, for commercial areas. But it doesn't sound good for industrial.


http://www.icpdas-usa.com/tpd_703.html#specifications

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code
 
naturephoenix said:
Hi! I would like to order PLC & touch panel all in one device.
Not sure which manufacturer. Was thinking from BACKOFF or ABB, maybe Siemens too.
Main problem with Siemens and ABB is price. Also support is important to me to make final decision, and of course communications with PLC. With Siemens for every kind of connection (MODBUS TCP...) I need to buy some aditional modules...
I want to ask you for some advice which equipment you used(which manufacturer and which model of PLC Touchmanel device)
Click to expand...

Proface, for sure. Mounts in a 22mm cutout hole, has CANBUS on board, Ethernet, and programming to do anything.
Hands-down.
 

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