Arduino PLC IDE Released

JesperMP said:

Just a heads-up:
https://www.esmacat.com/

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Thanks. Welp, that sucks. Perhaps I can find one on Ebay

busarider29 said:

I wonder if this will be the start of Arduino getting in the Industrial PLC market? That would be cool. Competition is always a good thing.

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http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=134550

I have applied to become a distributor for them in the US, from what they are saying the PLC will be the first part of next year

busarider29 said:

You can do all of these things and more in Beckhoff's TwinCAT 3. It's just one reason why I've been such a staunch supporter of that particular platform, with their huge portfolio of high performance hardware being the other. It's nice to see Arduino with an IDE that is following that model with at least some of the same features. They need the hardware now to follow suit. I did find an EtherCAT shield available from 3rd party.

https://create.arduino.cc/projecthu...thercat-arduino-shield-by-esmacat-ease-5f93ef

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I would love beckhoff if they were so damn expensive and hardware limited. They limit software features based on hardware... No thanks I'll still with vanilla codesys.


And why can't they run their arm based stuff on Linux like sane people. I think they choose BSD just to limit compatibility.

A very Rockwell type move.

theColonel26 said:

I would love beckhoff if they were so damn expensive and hardware limited. They limit software features based on hardware... No thanks I'll still with vanilla codesys.


And why can't they run their arm based stuff on Linux like sane people. I think they choose BSD just to limit compatibility.

A very Rockwell type move.

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Eh, you should learn more about the platform before you knock it.

Expensive? Compared to what/who? "expensive" is subjective. I mean, our thoughts here are that they are very reasonably priced and much cheaper than AB and likely Siemens too.
Hardware limited? I think that is just inherent to a few of the processors that they have in their portfolio, specifically the "economy" line processors, which are their cheapest and most compact. Those little guys can't do full motion and/or perhaps some of other specialty software libraries (Condition Monitoring?). Again, I think it's just inherent to the limitation of the particular electronics in those processors, not Beckhoff just doing it as a money grab thing. Using BSD has probably something to do with optimal performance for the TwinCAT runtime. Again, I don't think it has anything to do with locking in the customer to get in their pockets.

They have a lot of options for a processor depending on your application needs. Plus you can further customize the IPC at time of order, like adding more RAM, different CPU, display port options, etc. For our machines, we typically get something in the CX204x series, upgrade the RAM to >=32GB, 4-6 CPU cores, and add a second display port. That pretty much future proofs the PLC (>= 10 years) and doesn't limit us on any hardware, Beckhoff software, or 3rd party software we might want on the machine later. We order everything direct from Beckhoff. They don't do any middle-man distributor BS.

On the software side, we have moved to BSD for the runtime and Windows 10 as a VM on top. Our IT department loves it because of the added security and reliability and peace-of-mind they get with BSD, plus they can update and/or restart Windows without scheduling a shut down of the line. When our director of IT security went over the Beckhoff BSD solution and learned all about it (he actually knows the underlying structure way better than me), he was blown away by it and thought it was phenomenal where Beckhoff was going with their PLCs. He actually was pushing me to go BSD and from what I've learned, he's been trying to sell Beckhoff to one of our other companies down in Chicago and get them to move to the platform.

This IPC will run any software Beckhoff offers, all of their hardware I/O, and any third party software we want to install on the machine, robot control, synchronized motion, etc. EVERYTHING on this one IPC. Cost? ~$3000-4000. That's the equivalency cost of a nice development laptop. For an equivalent setup with say, AB hardware, you're gonna pay WAAYYYYY more than that, and you likely still won't get the performance out of it that will meet or exceed our Beckhoff solution. In addition to doing typical machine and motion control with our PLCs, we're also doing high speed measurement stuff that, in the past, you could only do with specialty hardware, say from vendors like National Instruments or HBM that sell specialized hardware and software for that sort of thing. When I say "high speed", I'm talking 100-200 kHz sampling frequencies on the analog I/O, (Over-sampling technology baby! Its what makes that possible!), PLC task scan times at 50µS, communication loop times in the single digit microsecond range. You're not coming close to doing any of that with anything from AB (or any black box PLC for that matter) The platform has saved us a lot of $$$$ that we otherwise would have had to spend if using some other PLC name. It's also saved us a lot of complex, expensive, and messy integrations.

So, before saying "expensive", consider everything and you soon realize its not that expensive at all.

Apologies to the OP for hi-jacking the thread. Back to Arduino IDE!!

JeremyM said:

They've got FT Design Studio on the way, claiming to support "modern software design". When they mentioned that it uses FT Smart Objects to produce a controller file to push out (.ACD ?), I got skeptical.

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Rockwell still doesn't have the concept of functions or part download (though I could swear it existed before) for programs or a real FB instead of an instruction. And they are too afraid to upset the masses of people that buy their kit because as soon as any construct that is anywhere close to proper software development is introduced, their biggest fans (you know, the ones that don't criticize) will then start looking elsewhere because it's no longer "easy".

The only time Rockwell will do it will be when they're on the brink of bankruptcy to try and save their business.

Let's not forget, this is a company that rolls out Logix tag based alarms (which include digital and analog), raves about how theiy-re the bees knees (I do love the concept, though as usual there are a ton of limitations to actually using it) and then create a DCS framework where they don't use the Analog Alarm functionality in their specially built PLCs for process industries.

JeremyM said:

The level of library development specification, structure, and encapsulation provided is gold.

Example stuff I threw together.

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Do these libraries come with it, or did you create the tree structure? Think wisely, because a blissful weekend with my wife depends on this answer. LOL

Have an ambiguous “Yes.”

The IDE is a repackaged toolset called LogicLab (Axel Software):
https://www.axelsoftware.it/en/
https://www.axelsoftware.it/en/download/

Their manual provides fairly thorough coverage. The LLExec target runtimes appear to extend to RPi, Ubuntu, and Arduino Due.

Is the PLC key required to run the simulator? I have installed the tools already, but still get the Unable to run simulation dialog box. The PLC IDE User Manual is just a reskinned version of LogicLab's as well. It doesn't offer much information about that.

No key required to sim.

Same result with Arduino IDE, but I can simulate generically using LogicLab with other hardware targets. I think there’s just a missing component in the Arduino installer and a broken link to a definition file; after installing LogicLab, the Arduino IDE launches the sim but doesn’t get further than that.

Interestingly, LogicLab ships with an EtherCAT library that can be imported to Arduino. With some work, the available hardware targets in LogicLab can also be imported to Arduino.

I am seeking documentation on Axel’s site for how to write comms libraries of my own, since they’re evidently modularly available by diving into the software Program Files.

Interesting question/thought about this.

How keen would anyone here be to release libraries in the wild for this Arduino PLC and then see a bunch of companies making money without contributing a dime towards the creators?

Just to get a bit of a feel really, I have stuff available on Github and don't mind sharing at all, but at a certain point where companies base their businesses around something I did, I'm not so sure I'd feel so inclined to share it.

cardosocea said:

Interesting question/thought about this.

How keen would anyone here be to release libraries in the wild for this Arduino PLC and then see a bunch of companies making money without contributing a dime towards the creators?

Just to get a bit of a feel really, I have stuff available on Github and don't mind sharing at all, but at a certain point where companies base their businesses around something I did, I'm not so sure I'd feel so inclined to share it.

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General purpose stuff would be fine by me.
Like OSCAT.
I wouldnt share application specific stuff.

cardosocea said:

Interesting question/thought about this.

How keen would anyone here be to release libraries in the wild for this Arduino PLC and then see a bunch of companies making money without contributing a dime towards the creators?

Just to get a bit of a feel really, I have stuff available on Github and don't mind sharing at all, but at a certain point where companies base their businesses around something I did, I'm not so sure I'd feel so inclined to share it.

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You can encrypt code in the IDE and even go as far as tying it to hardware via a key/algorithm you come up with. That or just encrypt and tag the modules with your contact info and charge support? There’s also sufficient enough flexibility in network code you can write that you could even have a remote activation thing.

JesperMP said:

General purpose stuff would be fine by me.
Like OSCAT.
I wouldnt share application specific stuff.

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Funny that - OSCAT shipped in the LogicLab installation and can also be imported to Arduino.

Out of idle curiosity- has any one purchased the LogicLab LLExec and could give a ballpark price on the Raspberry pi license?

Ordered a Portenta Machine Control yesterday, should arrive by next week for testing.

FB inheritance and methods alone are about to pay some dividends with a library I’m working up.