Questions about 1756 Safety Processor Features

I'm a system integrator and am planning on getting a used Allen Bradley 1756 processor for setting up a test/dev lab relatively cheaply. Maybe an L6X or L7X. Considering getting a safety processor to be able to learn/test safety code, but have never actually used one of the safety processors before. I'm wondering the following:

1. Would it be practical to use a safety processor to test general purpose code or would it just be better to get a normal processor if this is the primary use case? Would it be cumbersome to use for testing general purpose code?

2. In a lab test environment, where the reliability of the redundant hardware isn't critical, can the AB safety processors be used to run/test code without the safety co-processor? (i.e. could I buy just the main processor and not the safety co-processor). I've read the L8Xs doesn't need the co-processor, but I'm not sure if it applies to the L6XS and L7XS.

3. I'm pretty comfortable with the differences in functionality between the L6X, L7X, and L8X processors. Are there any significant differences in "Safety" functionality between these series to be aware of?

Thanks for the input.

Welcome to the forum.

The safety task works in combination with safety inputs and outputs. So unless you're testing safety code in combination with safety i/o, I would recommend just getting a non safe version and apply the savings to some thing else.

The non safe portion of the safety processors work just like their non safe counter parts.

The safety versions that use a partner will only run with a partner, even if your not running anything in the safety task.

I use the L6s, L7s, and compactlogix versions on a regular basis and am not aware of any significant differences. I can't speak for the L8s version, though I assume it's faster.