New Plant Control Network

[mordred]

well my experience is PC's are seldom work on the production floor so it is good idea plus ppl tend to want to play with a PC more than a VFD. (wannabe gurus). For your wireless make sure you have good overlap for your access point antenneas.

 

[surferb]

It depends what route you go.

For example, with FactoryPMI you can "get away" with PCs without much risk. Any of your touchscreen industrial PCs can be quickly and easily configured to run any project. All it takes is Java and clicking a link on a web page, plus you don't have client licenses to worry about. Additionally, no important data is ever stored client side. This gives you the ability to replace any failed PC without any headache. In case of an emergency, you could pull it up on any PC on your network or drop a PC on the plant floor. Thin Client (Terminal Services) solutions also have this advantage minus the concurrent client licensing; I'm not sure if Rockwell has a version, but Wonderware does.

If you go with a Rockwell solution, I would recommend Panelview, PV+s in a harsh environment due to the pain in the butt factor of dealing with repairing/deploying/replacing failed PCs in a crunch - PC based HMIs for the "control room". You know how this goes...(software installation, project restoration, data restore, service pack pain, license transfer, etc).

In general, PCs are more powerful and deliver more bang for your buck, but tend to be more error prone. The question becomes, how you will mitigate risk and deal with hardware problems. Oh yeah, check out Industrial Image and Hope Industrial. BTW, we use PCs in NASTY environments on Navy warships - they require "maintenance", but work fine. The details are in the implementation...

Thanks for all the responses - I plan to incorporate some of these items in our design. I have a strong feeling about moving away from PCs due to the various issues - anyone have comments on that? My proposal is to have HMI/PLCs control everything as much as possible and pull as many PCs off the floor as possible. Of course, this isn't always possible, but where I can I want to.