PLC as WebServer

[Cara Bereck]

I've been reading about PLCs capable of acting as webservers, containing pages of HTML that can be viewed over the Internet.

Is anyone here using such devices? What are the benefits to your application, or do you find it valuable in a particular type of application?

 

[rPraveenkum]

checkout this

http://www.ab.com/networks/webenabled/

 

[dchartier]

Hello Cara;

Siemens has webservers integrated in some of their Ethernet communication [processors, and on their Profinet CPUs.
Rockwell's Controllogix platform has a 1756-EWEB card with embedded Web server.
We have used them when a client requires the possibility of seeing plant data over the web, from a PC web browser. Gernerally they use java beans included with the configuration software for the web processors, so they are easy to setup.
They are not extensively used in industry, clients often have a fear of security issues and are wary of network issues where they have to submit to the IT department...
Hope this helps,
Daniel Chartier

 

[Mylo]

We've used them for a couple of customers, for use over companies lan network to control remote IO used for Lighting !! therefore at your desk you can control the lighting in your area, Works well in this application think BMS

 

[zova]

As soon I understood, you are looking for PLC capable of acting as webserver WITHOUT any additional thing.

look at here:

http://www.icpdas.com/products/PAC/wincon-8000/introduction.htm

I never used this PLC, but it seems nice.

 

[jvdcande]

A student has made a final year project here with me, to exploit the possibilities of the Siemens CP343-1IT.

Simply showing on/off states of bits (e.g. by means of coloured blocks changing colour) and the value of bytes/words can be done with the Java applets/beans provided by Siemens in a fairly easy way.

But we tried to go beyond the possibilities Siemens told us about. It can be done and the server can even produce pages with smootly moving objects, but it takes a heck of work to get the job done. To do this you'll need an extensive knowledge of Java programming.

As a result of this project we decided it wasn't feasable to make a course on how to use this communications card for our target audience. But we do have a sample project showing the limits (or about) of what can be done.

Kind regards,