B & r automation question

hello all,

I am working first time in B & r automation products. I dont know anything about B & R. I am experienced in siemens.
I have one power panel 400 and IO controllers of series 7EX484.50-1.
Now I have studied a little available documents on internet and understand that 7EX484.50-1 is some kind of IO controller working on ethernet and required IOs are attached to it. You require automation studio for programming and for visualization there is power panel 400.
Now my questions:
Programming is done from power panel, i mean power panel consist of automation studio software or is it just for visualization?
power panel is programmed from which software?
Where the automation program is stored. Is there a concept like engineering station and master backup with comments in b & r. Is it possible to take upload from already programmed PLC. or Is there different runtime software without source files?
7EX484.50-1 is PLC or is it just IO controller? In my system I have several 7EX484.50-1 distributed, so program is executed in all the devices or is it distributed according to IO or is it executed in power panel?


Sorry for so many questions, actually I am trying to understand an alien system here.

Any help is appreciated.
Kbv.

https://www.br-automation.com/en/academy/seminars/training-modules/

I would start by getting some information from B & R from the above site.

Regards,

I couple years ago my company evaluated some B&R products because we were considering using them but decided to stick with Allen Bradley. I remember a little about B&R but not much. I think Automation Studio is used to program the B&R PLC. I just went on the B&R website and it says that Power Panel is a B&R HMI which is also programmed using Automation Studio: https://www.br-automation.com/en/products/control-systems/power-panel/

It looks like the B&R site has a lot of downloads which may be useful:
https://www.br-automation.com/en/downloads/

Hope this helps.

Hello,

Thanks for reply.

After giving it a day, I think I got the basics. Just giving it here for reference. Please correct anyone if I am wrong.

There is one software called automation studio in which you can develop your application software including control logic and visualization. For communication with different components like HMI, plc and io controllers it uses automation net, which basically is bunch of communication protocols for communication with different devices. Some nice features are there like programming in c and detection of hardware and architecture. You can create user program and organize it in different files. Different IO can be mapped to different program variables. Most distinct feature is something called automation runtime software or operating system which is to be download in all the target device so that application program from automation studio can be downloaded to the target devices using automation net. This automation runtime is responsible for execution of program.

Power panel 400 seems to be HMI+PLC, but I am not sure yet. I am still little unclear about how different devices communicate or actually where program is executed. But I am going to study more.
Kbv.

PP400 is PLC + HMI and both PLC logic and the HMI visualization are programmed with Automation Studio. It's a little strange that you ended up with a PP400 and 7EX484.50-1 (Powerlink bus controller for system 2003) since System 2003 is much older than the PP400 and was replaced by X20 IO in 2005/2006 (PP400 came out a few years after X20 IO did).

Communication between Automation Studio and the PP400 is via PVI, which is a TCP protocol on port 11159; port 11160 is also used for improved transfer speed when downloading program updates.

Communication between the PP400 and the system 2003 IO is via Ethernet Powerlink, which is a real-time, deterministic protocol that can't be used on the physical networks as normal ethernet communication.

Thanks for reply.

Is there a concept of upload in B & R. I mean as I am working in already commissioned system, what are the chances I can recover application program, understand it and hopefully modify it.

Kbv.

I believe with B&R, if you don't have the original project you cannot upload it, especially with AS.

It's truly awful stuff.

There are two options of uploading the source from the PLC. You can FTP into the F:\ partition (an optional user partition that some programmers used to store source code), OR you can connect to the PLC with Automation studio and use File -> Open Project from Target. The project will only be available on the target if the programmer checked the box for that.

Usually B&R programmers don't include the source code and you'll need to ask the OEM for a copy of the program.