gareth.cantrill
Member
- Join Date
- Oct 2004
- Posts
- 51
Can anyone provide me with a solution to the following?
I have been asked to provide remote dial in access to a site 100 miles away from my office.
At the site there are six separate machines (they do not talk to one another). Each machine houses one AB ControlLogix 5550 PLC which is directly connected to one AB RAC6182.
Now. Heres the problem. Each PLC on every machine has the same IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.10) and each RAC6182 again has the same IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.11), so as you can imagine if they were all connected to the same network then we would have some IP clashes.
The only way I can see around this when it comes to accessing the PLC on a network is to add one extra Ethernet card to the plc rack on every machine and to give each card a different address, which would then allow me to look across the backplane for the processor. Would you agree??? I can then also directly connect the RAC6182 to the processor via a cross over cable.
Now the major problem for me is the network structure. I have no experience of networking. However I do know that it will not be possible to run cable around the plant as the distance and positioning of the machines will not permit. So I would like to find a wireless solution.
I would like to know if anyone has come across this same problem and if so how they dealt with it and whether you used wireless technology or not and if so what devices did you use (i.e. access point to the machine).
Hope the above makes sense to someone!!!!
I have been asked to provide remote dial in access to a site 100 miles away from my office.
At the site there are six separate machines (they do not talk to one another). Each machine houses one AB ControlLogix 5550 PLC which is directly connected to one AB RAC6182.
Now. Heres the problem. Each PLC on every machine has the same IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.10) and each RAC6182 again has the same IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.11), so as you can imagine if they were all connected to the same network then we would have some IP clashes.
The only way I can see around this when it comes to accessing the PLC on a network is to add one extra Ethernet card to the plc rack on every machine and to give each card a different address, which would then allow me to look across the backplane for the processor. Would you agree??? I can then also directly connect the RAC6182 to the processor via a cross over cable.
Now the major problem for me is the network structure. I have no experience of networking. However I do know that it will not be possible to run cable around the plant as the distance and positioning of the machines will not permit. So I would like to find a wireless solution.
I would like to know if anyone has come across this same problem and if so how they dealt with it and whether you used wireless technology or not and if so what devices did you use (i.e. access point to the machine).
Hope the above makes sense to someone!!!!