Brandon_K
Member
For whatever reason, I've always been a "sensor straight to the cabinet" kind of guy. It "just works", it's easy to troubleshoot, you never have communications issues, but comes with a list of cons.
I'm at the point where we're designing rooms (we do escape games) that are larger than we've dealt with in the past and M12 cable set lengths are becoming an issue. On top of that, our rooms are becoming increasingly complex which means more sensors, lights, switches etc, so bundles of M12 cables are getting big, requiring more room in the panel, larger wire duct and so on.
I've been looking into remote field I/O. The easiest solution for me would be to use a remote Productivity 2000 rack using the remote CPU, but for numerous reasons this isn't the best solution.
Right now I'm looking at the Protos X line from Automation Direct, both in MODBUS TCP and RTU flavors. I have plenty of background with networks, but for some reason I've never trusted serial or TCP connectivity with PLC's, it's just "wrong" in my head for some reason that I have no basis to feel that way on. I like knowing everything is powered from the panel and I'm not at the mercy of a switch dying or a network config changing, but at the same time, I need to find a better solution than what I'm doing now.
I'm also looking at the ADAM line from Advantech.
This all stemmed from a build we're doing for a client, two motion simulator elevators. Just the indicator panels, buttons and lights for each elevator is 20 inputs and 30 outputs, plus a few prox sensors. I would normally use 8 conductor cables and bulkheads and wire them that way, but even then there has to be a better way.
What is your experience?
I'm at the point where we're designing rooms (we do escape games) that are larger than we've dealt with in the past and M12 cable set lengths are becoming an issue. On top of that, our rooms are becoming increasingly complex which means more sensors, lights, switches etc, so bundles of M12 cables are getting big, requiring more room in the panel, larger wire duct and so on.
I've been looking into remote field I/O. The easiest solution for me would be to use a remote Productivity 2000 rack using the remote CPU, but for numerous reasons this isn't the best solution.
Right now I'm looking at the Protos X line from Automation Direct, both in MODBUS TCP and RTU flavors. I have plenty of background with networks, but for some reason I've never trusted serial or TCP connectivity with PLC's, it's just "wrong" in my head for some reason that I have no basis to feel that way on. I like knowing everything is powered from the panel and I'm not at the mercy of a switch dying or a network config changing, but at the same time, I need to find a better solution than what I'm doing now.
I'm also looking at the ADAM line from Advantech.
This all stemmed from a build we're doing for a client, two motion simulator elevators. Just the indicator panels, buttons and lights for each elevator is 20 inputs and 30 outputs, plus a few prox sensors. I would normally use 8 conductor cables and bulkheads and wire them that way, but even then there has to be a better way.
What is your experience?