Managed Switch's

[The Plc Kid]

Rob

PV Plus Takes up 6 connections but as far as performance you also have to thinking about IO PPS and HMI PPS which the HMI PPS changes depending on how many tags the HMI is processing and how fast (RPI).

UDT to pass the dta in your case would most likely be best.

You can use the stratix 6000 as long as all 3 pieces of equipment are going to be on the same logical network (Subnet).

If keeping 3 seperate networks you will need layer 3 which requires the stratix 8300.

Also make sure that if you have multiple switches the IGMP Quirier is only active on the switch with the lowest IP Address.

 

[OkiePC]

The diagram is a decent start, but now you should make it a bit more realistic...
When you say producer/consumer, are you sure that will be one way communication? Also put some colored lines that show what each HMI needs to share data with.

You're not going to connect the two HMIs together with a patch cable...go ahead and show all the ethernet devices (even the future ones) and think about how they physically will connect with your black lines. This will quickly reveal the need to draw a switch on there somewhere. Just stick it off to the side, and draw the lines..you can always move it, or split into multiple switches later.

 

[robw53]

yes they are all on the same network 192.168.1.xxx

okie the produce/consume is only setup one way as im only wanting to display on the mixers information sent from the flour system.

the drawing i did was how it will be setup at present it will be expanded to in the future with 2 VFD's, PV+, Flex I/O all on ethernet as at present these are on Devicenet from a 1769-SDN in the flour system rack

i will do a second drawing with the full picture of how it will be with all the VFD's etc which i know will need a managed switch i just want to know if i can use an unmanaged one with what setup i currently have, until i get a managed switch? i did use the ethernet capacity tool to check and i had sufficient connections with the current setup.

if a PV+ is on the network but isn't looking directly at the flour system PLC does this still have any detrimental effect on its communications?

 

[robw53]

well spotted paul, i didnt see the mistake with the patch cable between the HMI's, should have been the processors, even though it shows a link between the mixers these do not share any information between each other

here it is again, corrected

 

[robw53]

here is the new drawing with everything on that will be on the network.

anything ive missed let me know and i will add, this is my first ethernet network project so i may be missing something off that i didnt anticipate needing to know.

 

[robw53]

ive been comparing different switchs stratix 6000, westermo L110 etc but im still unsure of exatly what are important features i need for this type of setup i am after, could someone maybe let me have some pointers as to what to look for if at all possible.

FYI everything is on the same network i.e 192.168.1.xxx maybe in the future it could link with equipment on another network which if i am right in what i believe would mean you would want a layer 2 or 3 depending how many different networks

also if i had a managed switch in the main flour system panel and had all the mixers pluged into that and link that to an unmanaged switch that the 2 VFD's flex I/O, PV+1000 were pluged into as these won't need to have any communication with any of the mixers, would that work or would i want everything routed independantly through the managed switch to function effciently? i just want to know so i can spec how many ports i will be after


Rob

 

[The Plc Kid]

How many ports will you have total? Everthing?

It would be better to have it all on 1 switch if possible. If you are using multicast the any system that has devices on a unmanaged switch will have excess traffic. That being said if it is only a few devices it is not a problem.

Myself I like to have managed all around for the diagnostics.

If everthing is on the same network you can use stratix 6000 at layer 2 if you want to connect to a different network like 1.10.60.XXX then you will need layer 3 which is routing or add a router later if needed.

Tips I like to have a switch in each cabinet for diagnostics and troubleshooting and also leave yourself a free port in each cabinet like a free port on the switch or a graceport on the door or sopmething similar.

Features to be concerned with are IGMP snooping and sometime QOS so you can give your plc and drives the bandwidth priortiy and less to any other devices.

Are you going to do a ring network or star? That is something to consider when choosing a switch

 

[The Plc Kid]

Are your drives AB? Your HMI is and your PLC's are. I myslef would use a ab supported switch in this setup. May reduce tech support pain if you ever need to do any deep triubleshooting. The problem can't be blamed on another vendors equipment if it is all ab and it sounds like it all is but the switch. Just a thought.

The ab 8000 switches can be setup,backed up and managed using several cisco tools,built in web interface and with logix 5000 there are faceplates for them to put on your HMI also. You won't get these features with a non ab switch.

The 6000 switches are the same but the cisco tools are not used with the 6000 as it does not use the IOS operating system.

 

[The Plc Kid]

If you do want the layer 3 switching (routing)and want a ab switch make sure you get 8300 and not 8000 they are very similar but the 8000 does not have layer 3 and many people have made the mistake of telling customers they could be upgraded or flashed and this is not true. They are slightly different hardware.

There area whole new series of stratix switch due to be relesed soon with more feature and better price points but it sound like you are going to be doing this project pretty soon so that most likely will not be a option for you.

 

[robw53]

i will need 4 ports straight off then when i get everything swapped over from devicenet to ethernet that will increase to 7 plus one for the laptop, yes i have been fitting the IP65 panel mounted ethernet ports to our equipment as some of our panels have the isolator handle on the door and are not defeatable which means any fault finding would mean powering down to get plugged in then you loose the faults.

in the two mixers they do have switch's to connect the plc to the hmi but these are unmanaged, in fact there is two in each mixer, one in the main panel side which is housed in a dry are with the plc and then another ethernet cable goes through the wall to the operator panel to the second switch then an ethernet cable from that switch to the hmi, this is so i can plug in at either panel depending what i am fault finding.

i will be using a star network topology but then having the link between the mixers makes it a sort of ring aswell.

yes the drives are AB powerflex's 40's, and i am in agreement about using all AB stuff, i try to stick with it unless unavaliable or its stupidly priced, i quite fancy the faceplates with the stratix range

im looking at the 6000 £681 and 8000 £1130 and its driving me towards the 6000.

if there is a new range releasing soon then maybe i could just hang fire on the devicenet-ethernet changeover and just stick with the basic produce from the flour system and consume by the mixers before having it all on ethernet.

after the new year i am looking at going on the rockwell ethernet engineering 1 day course this should shine some light on what i need to know about constructing an ethernet network.

 

[OkiePC]

here is the new drawing with everything on that will be on the network.

Nice.

I am still stuck at work, buried in surprise product changes and accompanying tuurd polishing, so I haven't had time to study your drawing much, but that is the type of visual aid that should generate good answers from the experts here (like ThePLCKid) and can become a design doc you can keep up to date and lean on for future work.

Paul

 

[The Plc Kid]

Nice.
so I haven't had time to study your drawing much, but that is the type of visual aid that should generate good answers from the experts here (like ThePLCKid) and can become a design doc you can keep up to date and lean on for future work.

Paul

I know just enough to get myself into trouble.

 

[The Plc Kid]

Main difference between the 8000 and 6000 series are

1000 Mbit copper is on the 8000 and not the 6000.

6000 is fixed ports 4 or 8 where 8000 is expandable.

8000 uses the cisco IOS operating system and the 6000 does not. This is good if your IT dept heps you manage the switches or network and ties it to the corporate network as many IT people like using the cisco CLI ( Command Line Interface )

Another thing that I consider a big thing is the 8000 has removable flash and 6000 does not so if a switch fails at 2:00 AM on the weekend and it is a 8000 bubba can put in a new one and get the flash card from the old switch pwer up and he is running. On the 6000 you will get called in to fix it.

Here is a link to a pretty good side by side comparison http://samplecode.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/qr/enet-qr001_-en-e.pdf

 

[robw53]

i was reading the PDF a few days ago but not knowing what it is i am after made it not so useful to me, i need to spend some time reading up on it, just somethings aren't so clear maybe going on the ethernet course will help me understand all the things that are criticle to ethernet networks

 

[The Plc Kid]

We sent some guys to the 1 day course that our ab distributor has. Most times those are real basic like setting IP addy's and just getting connected and basic ethernet theory. A good class but I doubt it's going to cover in the detail you are working with. Just from our company experience. You are across the pond it looks like so YMMV.


In your situation if you need the routing go with 8300 if not 6000 will be ok. I just really like the flash card feature of the 8000 that has saved me a lot of work many times here but we have hundreds of these switches on this site.

Now we only buy 8300 unless it is a small cabinet then we use the 8 port 6000. We also leave reoom for both expansion rack on the 8300 in each cabinet cause we are always adding something seems like.

I can help you with any questions on either model you choose so no worries. I myself also fancy the 8000 series because I work with cisco switchs a lot on a IT level here so I like the CLI interface.