I am tasked with building a process floor LAN to supply enterprise data. You could call it a SCADA, MIS, EIS or other acronym. I have been successful in building a network, used primarily for machine troubleshooting, consisting of Allen Bradley PLCs. We also have Siemens 3?? Seires PLCs that I must retrieve data from.
I am currently using a Controllogix bridge (no CPU) for the Allen Bradley communication to the enterprise side. This is communicating with the following: Ethernet, DH+, and DH485 protocols. My plan is to install a CPU in the rack to poll the floor PLCs for the requested data points (tags). This will provide me with a single point for all process floor data.
My question from all this is can Siemens PLCs communicate to the Controllogix in any way, or do I have to treat them as a separate network? Any advice from people who have networked dissimilar PLCs is appreciated.
I am currently using a Controllogix bridge (no CPU) for the Allen Bradley communication to the enterprise side. This is communicating with the following: Ethernet, DH+, and DH485 protocols. My plan is to install a CPU in the rack to poll the floor PLCs for the requested data points (tags). This will provide me with a single point for all process floor data.
My question from all this is can Siemens PLCs communicate to the Controllogix in any way, or do I have to treat them as a separate network? Any advice from people who have networked dissimilar PLCs is appreciated.