PLC programming software under linux

[fixstuff]

Codesys on a Pi is crazy good

For what it's worth, Codesys on the Pi is awesome.

This is Codesys v3 mind you, which is pretty much the latest.

I have a test project where I have networked 2 or 3 Pis together, trying Modbus and the Network variables method (think Allen Bradley Producer/Consumer on steroids), and it works fantastically.

Would it be even possible to go online with 3 AB PLCs simultaneously, or download to all 3? With Codesys on a Pi you can. Its nuts.

I have even played around with the built in I/O off the Pi. I was able to get a HAT design that used an external processor with the I2C lines on the Pi header, which gave me pretty much infinite I/O capability into and out of Codesys. This doesn't even count all the Pi-related boards that work, or just the plain vanilla GPIO, serial, SPI, and I2C.

Throw in Modbus Client, Server, Ethernet IP scanner, Profinet, etc..

To top it off, I used the built in visualization capability (web server) to stream live video on the Pi over the network connection with the same buttons and graphs on the visualization. I only wish they included the Target Visualization (oh well).

A 3 hour limit free demo mode on the Pi (then you reboot to reset), and you have simply an awesome tool to learn Codesys (and one of the best IEC6-1131-3 IDEs IMO) on a $35 Pi. It will even run on a Model A.

Yes, you have to run Codesys's IDE on a Windows machine, but I do that from VMware running on Linux, so even that you don't have to do except virtually.

If they ever port Codesys over to Linux... I get cold chills just thinking about it.

 

[jvdcande]

Knowing that the new Raspberry Pi 2 is running a quad core ARM processor on a higher clock frequency than the A and B version, this sounds very promising.

 

[JordanCClark]

Agreed, it's unfortunately to be on the losing end of the laws of economics....

That's good to know that Ignition is Java and therefore cross platform. It's a shame that I've heard Java is going the way of flash, where the company that owns it is trying to phase it out even though the people using it are quite happy. Well, happy except for the constant updates due to security flaws...

Java isn't going away anytime soon...

When C came out in the 80's: "When is COBOL going away?"
When C++ came out in the early 90's: "When is C going away?"
When Java come out in the late 90's: "When is C++ going away?"
And so on.

All these are still around and productive in their niches (financial institutions still use a lot of COBOL), but even now, Java is still in the top 2 of the most popular languages-- I'm not saying the best, or best for an application, just most popular (runs neck and neck with C now that Arduino and such have hit the market).

There was an interesting thread elsewhere on this. Let me see if I can find it.

 

[danatomega]

... Java is still in the top 2 of the most popular languages-- I'm not saying the best, or best for an application, just most popular (runs neck and neck with C now that Arduino and such have hit the market).
quote]

That link clearly states:
The ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors. Popular search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu are used to calculate the ratings. It is important to note that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.

 

[JordanCClark]

Sorry, Dan, was that disagreement or corroboration?

 

[danatomega]

I was attempting to say it is not necessarily the most popular, but after re-reading my post, maybe it appears that it is, based on the number of skilled engineers, yada, yada...
Although, I gotta say, I have never been personally queried for any of the polls that pop up saying whatever. I sometimes wonder how they arrive at the data they present.

 

[Manglemender]

Knowing that the new Raspberry Pi 2 is running a quad core ARM processor on a higher clock frequency than the A and B version, this sounds very promising.

OT I know but..

The Pi 2 is so much better. It out performs my old desktop PC and consumes less power than the fan on my old PC. I have a PI 2 running LXDE and, as I have network storage available, I'm considering not replacing my old PC.

Nick