"Simple/Lite" scada recommendations

I have a customer that is wanting to update their facility control system. This system is/will be controlling thing like test cell ventilation, combustion air handlers, cooling towers, diesel fuel supply, etc. The current system is partially controlled via a DL405 PLC and EA7 Cmore panels. One of the changes they want to make is to have some sort of scada like system to do viewing/alarming/historian features. They have also talked about things like predictive maintenance, but I'm not really sure that they have complex/big enough system for that other than perhaps some logic in the plc. The control system will likely be AD Do-More BRX based. This needs to be something that they can make changes to in the future, and the alarming/SMS/email notification and history viewing are very important features that they are wanting.
I have not counted up total number of tags, but I'm thinking it will not be over 1000.

- Historian would need to be viewable and also logable (ie seperate logging to csv file).

So far some options that I am thinking.
1. VTscada
2. Ignition (seems expensive, but people like it. ..)
3. Others?

PeakHMI looks cheap, but I don't know if/how it does history data.

g.mccormick said:

PeakHMI looks cheap, but I don't know if/how it does history data.

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Yep, send me a email if you want to try the demo

https://www.plccable.com/pc-based-hmi-scada-unlimited-tags-allen-bradley-siemens-ad-omron-and-more/

I'd get in touch with Ignition and ask for a price. They can often build you a custom license for very low cost, and the beauty of Ignition is that it's completely modular. So, if you start out with a limited license and then two years down the track go "holy smoking catfish batman, this SCADA stuff is GREAT!" and want to expand, you just can easily expand on your current system. There's no "oh, well, now you have to migrate to the high-end platform which means re-doing your whole development and architecture" (looking at you, Wonderware) or "that license can't be upgraded, you'll just have to buy a new one for your new features". You can start very, very small and simple, and eventually expand out to a whole network of factories, from the same base you started on.

ASF beat me to the punch. The unlimited license of ignition is expensive but you can get a license that limits the tags and the clients and that would.get your price down a fair bit.

DwSoFt said:

ASF beat me to the punch. The unlimited license of ignition is expensive but you can get a license that limits the tags and the clients and that would.get your price down a fair bit.

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I don't think they limit the tags, only the clients. That's one of the reasons Ignition wipes the floor with Wonderware IMO. None of this fancy bull**** scripting to pack and unpack control words and status words so you can cut down on tag count to get under the limit. Just create a UDT and bam, your entire PLC structure is available for use in the SCADA right away!

Try Movicon, This seems to be a reasonably priced system, easy to use, only pay for what you want and upgradable if you need to increase tag count. You can download a trial that works for 2 hours at a time (as far as I'm aware fully functional) has loads of I/O drivers (however I tend to use Kepware). The scripting is fantastic. This is not very high end unless you are experienced in scripting, database connectivity i.e. SQL is fantastic. I did a rewrite of an Ifix system and an old RSView32 as experiments of a replacement and they worked a treat, however before I could implement them the company went into liquidation, however I had them running in parallel for some time (just had to restart them every two hours). The project was approved and money allocated just 3 weeks before the chop.

Thanks guys.

For the historian, I believe that I will be looking for is something that has intuitive easily accessible history viewing without having to open a file in excel/etc. I played around with the vtscada demo from their site for a bit and I like that you can just click on a value and it pops up history data. I'm guessing that ignition has this abilit also? What about Movicon? And PeakHMI?

g.mccormick said:

And PeakHMI?

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Like I said in the first reply, send me a email (or PM me your email address) and I would be glad to send you the info on the demo and you can give it a try

The best way for anyone of them is to just give it a test drive

email [email protected]

AD BRX Data Logging Function
https://accautomation.ca/brx-plc-data-logging/

AD BRX Email / SMS / Secure Email Function
https://accautomation.ca/brx-plc-email-text-sms-messaging-gmail

AdvancedHMI Modbus TCP to the BRX
https://accautomation.ca/brx-plc-advancedhmi-communication-modbus-tcp

AD BRX PLC Modbus TCP to Click PLC
https://accautomation.ca/modbus-rtu-brx-plc-master-to-click-plc-slave-communication
The DL405 is capable of Modbus TCP communication with an additional card. If they have a D4-454 CPU with built-in Modbus RTU then this would also be able to communicate to the BRX.

The above links may help you out.
Regards,

ASF said:

I don't think they limit the tags, only the clients. That's one of the reasons Ignition wipes the floor with Wonderware IMO. None of this fancy bull**** scripting to pack and unpack control words and status words so you can cut down on tag count to get under the limit. Just create a UDT and bam, your entire PLC structure is available for use in the SCADA right away!

Click to expand...

The license for ignition is server based. You can have as many tags and clients as you need. We use Ignition extensively and truly enjoy its ability to adapt to any situation we can come up with.