SCADA - Which one good solution with BECKHOFF

Hello my dear friends,

I haven't posted here in a while, since I switched to project management and stopped programming.

Well, quick question, which SCADA software would you suggest to use with BECKHOFF hardware?

Something reliable, easy to use/easy to learn. No SIEMENS or Rockwell.

Reliable and easy to learn. That's a tough one.

I will almost always suggest WonderWare for it's flexibility.
However Ignition is also a good option and better on the pocket book.

"Easy to learn" is subjective.

There was a long thread on here a few weeks ago similar to your inquiry. I would look at Ignition, and since you're running with Beckhoff hardware, I would also look into TwinCAT HMI. The name TwinCAT "HMI" can be a bit misleading, as it's not just for stand-alone HMI's. It's easily scalable to full SCADA system too. I have worked a little with both platforms, but not an expert with either one.

Anyway, research both of those solutions. It might ultimately come down to cost as the deciding factor.

I just downloaded and installed Ignition. It seems really interesting solution! Thank you guys

Regarding WonderWare; I heard before that this is one of the best SCADAs but I never used myself. Do you believe they have strong restrictions to export for Eastern countries or any country?

How big a system are you needing ? a few point and an HMI or 60K points for a full plant. Beckhoff (Codesys) has its own one built in and runs as part of TwinCat3

There are alsorts of Scada and for various platforms, sometime licensing costs drive the descision rather than ooo I fancy that one. Sometime a customer dictates what to use.

Farnesi said:

I just downloaded and installed Ignition. It seems really interesting solution! Thank you guys

Regarding WonderWare; I heard before that this is one of the best SCADAs but I never used myself. Do you believe they have strong restrictions to export for Eastern countries or any country?

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You may find you need to move to Linux + Something as it used to be middle east countries were a WINDOWS no go area,

mad4x4 said:

How big a system are you needing ? a few point and an HMI or 60K points for a full plant. Beckhoff (Codesys) has its own one built in and runs as part of TwinCat3

There are alsorts of Scada and for various platforms, sometime licensing costs drive the descision rather than ooo I fancy that one. Sometime a customer dictates what to use.

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It is big. I cant measure yet but over 20K I/Os. It will be split in two systems entirely.

Is Ignition advised for critical process? Is it stable and reliable? Redundancy services/servers works well?

Farnesi said:

Is it stable and reliable? Redundancy services/servers works well?

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Igntion is very stable and can be configured for redundancy.
It will also run on Linux, we have sites where as part of our redundancy scheme, we have one Windows server and one Linux server.



20K tags is a walk in the park for Igntion on a single server, I wouldn't think about a seperate I/O server sub 200K, there are plenty of instances with Millions of tags on server clusters.

mad4x4 said:

How big a system are you needing ? a few point and an HMI or 60K points for a full plant. Beckhoff (Codesys) has its own one built in and runs as part of TwinCat3

There are alsorts of Scada and for various platforms, sometime licensing costs drive the descision rather than ooo I fancy that one. Sometime a customer dictates what to use.

Click to expand...

Chris Taylor said:

Igntion is very stable and can be configured for redundancy.
It will also run on Linux, we have sites where as part of our redundancy scheme, we have one Windows server and one Linux server.



20K tags is a walk in the park for Igntion on a single server, I wouldn't think about a seperate I/O server sub 200K, there are plenty of instances with Millions of tags on server clusters.

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Sorry I was thinking 20k instruments. Each instrument/valve usually have 4-5 I/Os. I think i will reach 100k I/Os.

Regardless it seems really reliable. I am doing research on companies in Italy/Austria/Germany which can support us if anyone know any, please let me know.

Go on the Inductive automation website and go to Integrator search

It is my understanding Ignition would need an OPC server to communicate with Beckhoff controllers while TwinCAT HMI does come with the direct driver. This could mean a significant difference in performance.

My first impression of TwinCAT HMI was that Beckhoff is trying to compete with Ignition.

LadderLogic said:

It is my understanding Ignition would need an OPC server to communicate with Beckhoff

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Beckhoff has an OPC UA server you could use, also some devices have OPC UA built-in.


Unless you are looking for sub 250ms read speeds then it won't be an issue.

Chris Taylor said:

Unless you are looking for sub 250ms read speeds then it won't be an issue.

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It is an issue for me: I used to expect 50 to 70 ms read speeds between my HMI and the PLC

I used VB.net to make custom HMI's with data file storage with Beckhoff PLC (until laid-off). But, we wanted a store-bought package for one control room so the zone engineers could develop their own HMI's without learning Visual Studio. The local Beckhoff support suggested WonderWare or Indusoft. WW gave an amazing quote, something like $10K, with all add-ons, assuming an aerospace company had deep pockets. Yes, for government direct-charge, but ultra-cheap on "overhead" projects. I picked Indusoft since $700 and looked easy. The zone engineers developed an HMI, but one knew Windows programming (older C) so not sure it was easier than learning Visual Studio. That was ~2012. I have seen ads for Ignition, so would look at that today. At least look at AdvancedHMI, which is free VB.net source code developed by Archie here. Not sure what it allows in data collection, but you can add file saving to the VB code yourself. https://www.advancedhmi.com/

LadderLogic said:

It is my understanding Ignition would need an OPC server to communicate with Beckhoff controllers while TwinCAT HMI does come with the direct driver. This could mean a significant difference in performance.

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Using an OPC server for Ignition to connect with Beckhoff controllers may have an impact on speed when compared to the TwinCAT HMI's direct driver integration.
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