Remote I/O Choices

FactoryTalktotheHand said:
Personally, I'm not a fan of Wago/Beckhoff. After working with them for a few years, I've found them not to be very reliable and have caused me numerous headaches trying to troubleshoot them. What tends to happen is the bus connectors on each slice tend to corrode over time. It doesn't take much for this corrosion to interrupt communications and fault out the entire rack, randomly taking your system down.

The comm adapters also supposedly give you a flash code to tell you which module is bad, but I don't think I've ever had that code actually be accurate in telling me which module actually was bad. It'll usually be two or three slices off. So it'll flash six times and card 3 is actually the problem.

At my last job where I ran into this a lot we actually implemented a PO for maintenance to go around the plant to pull out and re-seat every single beckhoff/wago card in the facility every few months. Otherwise, between the corrosion, heat, and vibration, we'd be plagued with mysterious machine shutdowns with no obvious cause.

I'd only use them if you can't find any other solution. But if you can avoid them, do so. They're a maintenance nightmare.
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I've found the exact opposite... We have a lot in a wwtp that had a bad h2s problem.. Everything died except the beckhoff. Never had a bus issue, excepting 1 block that had a pneumatic solenoid rack attached which needed a beefier din rail to keep it all lined up..
 
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Lemming said:
I've found the exact opposite... We have a lot in a wwtp that had a bad h2s problem.. Everything died except the beckhoff. Never had a bus issue, excepting 1 block that had a pneumatic solenoid rack attached which needed a beefier din rail to keep it all lined up..
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Maybe it's just the application. My experience was in a food plant so lots of moisture and temperature swings (45F during production to 85F during cleanup), even though they were all in supposedly washdown-rated enclosures. That said, working that job has led me to to the firm belief that there is no such thing as "washdown" rated anything. Maybe under controlled laboratory conditions, but in the real world, everything leaks. I've seen IP69K rated sensors fail in less than 24 hours due to moisture.
 
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FactoryTalktotheHand said:
Maybe it's just the application. My experience was in a food plant so lots of moisture and temperature swings (45F during production to 85F during cleanup), even though they were all in supposedly washdown-rated enclosures. That said, working that job has led me to to the firm belief that there is no such thing as "washdown" rated anything. Maybe under controlled laboratory conditions, but in the real world, everything leaks. I've seen IP69K rated sensors fail in less than 24 hours due to moisture.
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You are right about "real world scenarios.."

Worst install location I used bus terminals is a couple of nodes on a venison skinning rig.. was retrofitting a new PLC, and was hardwired IO to the moving rails via multicore cables that kept on breaking.. Wired all the IO to a box per rail with a bus coupler & IO in it, and robotic Dnet cable up to connectors.. Get vibration / heat / cold / water / chemical... have stainless IP 67 cabinets, with another IP 67 plastic box in side, all penetrations double glanded.. Was hassled about overkill at the time, but still rocking 7 years later.. Any time I am worried about the environment, a box within a box has always done the trick.
 
Washdown scenarios may be one of the trickiest environments.
I think that the IP67 rating does not cover if there is soap in the water. Soap will remove the surface tension so that the water can creep in where it otherwise would not.
edit: If just a minute amount of moisture gets inside an IP67 box, then you have lost. The moisture cannot get away so it will have forever to do damage to the parts inside.

I like the "box within a box" idea.

I have heard that others in the same situation actually do the opposite, washdown is done with all boxes closed, but afterwards they are all opened for some time, to dry any eventual moisture that has got inside. So they are designed to easily open.
I guess that will only work for simple terminal boxes with just teminals inside.

Another idea is to have heating inside all boxes. Moisture will always transport towards the cooler side.
 
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Lemming said:
You are right about "real world scenarios.."

Worst install location I used bus terminals is a couple of nodes on a venison skinning rig.. was retrofitting a new PLC, and was hardwired IO to the moving rails via multicore cables that kept on breaking.. Wired all the IO to a box per rail with a bus coupler & IO in it, and robotic Dnet cable up to connectors.. Get vibration / heat / cold / water / chemical... have stainless IP 67 cabinets, with another IP 67 plastic box in side, all penetrations double glanded.. Was hassled about overkill at the time, but still rocking 7 years later.. Any time I am worried about the environment, a box within a box has always done the trick.
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Ain't that the truth. So few people are willing to try it but the few times I've seen it happen, you're absolutely right. The inner box will stay bone dry.
 
JesperMP said:
Washdown scenarios may be one of the trickiest environments.
I think that the IP67 rating does not cover if there is soap in the water. Soap will remove the surface tension so that the water can creep in where it otherwise would not.
edit: If just a minute amount of moisture gets inside an IP67 box, then you have lost. The moisture cannot get away so it will have forever to do damage to the parts inside.

I like the "box within a box" idea.

I have heard that others in the same situation actually do the opposite, washdown is done with all boxes closed, but afterwards they are all opened for some time, to dry any eventual moisture that has got inside. So they are designed to easily open.
I guess that will only work for simple terminal boxes with just teminals inside.

Another idea is to have heating inside all boxes. Moisture will always transport towards the cooler side.
Click to expand...

There are a number of products that supposedly keep boxes dry. I've seen ones run off compressed air, keeping positive pressure inside the box which forces moisture out. Of course, you have a few hundred boxes in your facility and the extra energy and wear-and-tear you're spending on the air compressor might not be worth it. Only thing I've ever seen that really works is Box-within-a-box. You can't always do it, but when you can, it works.

I've seen harsh chemicals do nasty things to panel gaskets, so I agree with the soap thing. It's like those people putting out "washdown" rated products do so under the assumption that people clean with hot water only.
 
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I'm bumping this thread because I'm in the process of looking for a remote I/O solution. I've used AB Point I/O in the past, but I'm looking for a less expensive alternative. I also need high speed counter cards in the remote racks.

Any updates to the comments above? New products? New cautionary tales from the last few years?
 
JRoss said:
I'm bumping this thread because I'm in the process of looking for a remote I/O solution. I've used AB Point I/O in the past, but I'm looking for a less expensive alternative. I also need high speed counter cards in the remote racks.

Any updates to the comments above? New products? New cautionary tales from the last few years?
Click to expand...

I've used many racks of Beckhoff remote I/O modules. The BK9105 Ethernet/IP adapter has a built-in switch but costs more than the BK9055 version with one port. One kind of failure I've had in the last ten years occurred when using the bus extension modules. These can be sensitive to vibration and can cause intermittent faults like previously described in this thread. Better to use more EIP adapters. At the time, I carefully looked into the backplane connections and they appeared to be gold plated. But if they are removed and reinstalled a bunch of times, perhaps they might wear through and later corrode. The HSC card works well, but be careful with the part number, to get the z-pulse version you need. And plan to spend a lot of time getting it to work the first time, especially if you need to use the high speed outputs. The module was intended for use with glue guns and all the documentation is written from that perspective.

I've also been using the newer CompactLogix remote I/O, which is not cheap, but is high quality and easy to configure, including the HSC. And it is fast.
 
I was looking at the Advantech product. The ADAM-6051 looks almost perfect. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they have an Ethernet/IP version of it.

My current project will need four racks of I/O, each with 2-6 incremental encoder inputs, DC inputs, and relay outputs.

AB Point I/O and CompactLogix remote I/O is great to work with, and I've already put together ballpark pricing for the customer using that option. However, I was hoping to find something a little less expensive and/or more compact.

I haven't used Turck. Do they have encoder inputs on Ethernet/IP?
 

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