Arduino/Raspberry Pi PLC's...

leem2209

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I spotted this video on YouTube earlier. It's from 2014 but I wonder if Arduino or Raspberry Pi controllers are making their way into the industrial automation world?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5VDhqV4TZg

Does anyone use these for real purposes?

Although I don't think they could compete with the big names for large applications, I could see the benefit in these units.

Cost, I imagine would be hugely cheaper than the big brands. But more than that is the open source software, saving huge costs on software licences and training. I imagine these controllers are used in schools/colleges for engineering training. I've also seen kits aimed at infant aged kids!

Could the new breed of PLC programmers be under 10 years old???

I've often thought about ordering one and having a little play but got enough learning on my plate at the moment!
 
This item has been discussed a couple of times before.
If you search the forum, you will find out that the majority of us are negative to use this kind of playtools to control industrial equipment.

Kalle
 
I found a couple of threads from back in 2014. Some of the talk was about the voltage differences and need for adding relays for inputs and outputs as well as a separate power supply.

But this Kickstarter project from 2014 has addressed these issues. And I wondered if there has been any further development in industry since.

I can completely understand your thoughts on it being a "playtool" but at the end of the day, any serious cost benefits could throw that argument out.

For example, build cost may be cheaper, possibly not an awful lot. But programming training could be much cheaper, savings in licences costs could be huge, and the pay for an engineer with Arduino programming knowledge over Siemens programming knowledge? Much more savings there too.

That's not to say it's all right! And I'm not saying that's what I'd like to see, but its a possibility of things to come. Companies have failed in the past to not see the potential future, just because they didn't like it (Kodak didn't like digital and got left behind).

It may mean that the likes of Siemens takes a new approach to licensing and training. I've invested finances and hours of learning myself into Siemens, I've badgered my employees to put me on training courses outside of my financial allowance. I have some older PLC stuff at home to play about with, and I'd love to obtain licences to run TIA portal and have a new laptop for playing about with. But I can't justify those costs personally and have to rely on work equipment availability. Arduino could be easily funded, and if there's plenty of people out there who have lots of Arduino knowledge, there could be some powerful bits of kit made on the cheap.

Just my thoughts...
 
hi,

I would not be such an ignorant like 'KalleOlsen'. In my eyes, rpi or arduino is a big step forwards towards taking technology further. We all now what's new is scary but these playtools are used to launch rockets and gather data in space.

So, deffinitely it sounds promising however a lot of tests and validation activities need to take place before you could start using them seriously in the industry.

Deffinitely, it is risky for big boys Suppliers due to the simple facts these great tools raspberrypi and arduino are much more cheaper and are ridicously fast.

cheers
 
So, deffinitely it sounds promising however a lot of tests and validation activities need to take place before you could start using them seriously in the industry.

Deffinitely, it is risky for big boys Suppliers due to the simple facts these great tools raspberrypi and arduino are much more cheaper and are ridicously fast.

I agree!

In my experience, machinery is bought based on price spec and price of maintainability rather than the technical aspects of it. Our company bought a machine for a euro! They didn't care about the technical spec and for us engineers it was a nightmare! But they got more than a euro's worth of work out of it.

Machinery control could change drastically over the next decade, putting our current skills to bed! I've seen it in other industries where not keeping up with technology possibilities has caused lost careers... My mother being one of them!
 
The argument against using those types of devices in the Industrial Automation market isn’t whether or not they will work (at least for me) but rather one of future support and compatibility. When an end users spends many millions of dollars on an automation system they want to know that 5, 10, 15 years from now there will be people who know how to work on it (update, expand, repair, etc…) and the replacement equipment and/or compatible equipment is available to them. I’d be very surprised if Raspberry Pi is still around in 10 years and if there are lots of people who know how to deal with them.
 
I have an Arduino. I also have a Raspberry Pi. I like both of them a lot. But I looked at the kickstarter and nothing strikes me as revolutionary.

At its heart, the Arduino is essentially an Atmel ATMega microcontroller development board with a set of helpful software libraries that abstract some stuff away to make it more accessible to people that aren't programmers. Nothing wrong with that.

But development boards aren't meant for field use, so this guy repackaged it in a more suitable enclosure with some relays, etc. I don't consider that to truly be an Arduino anymore, now it's simply an ATMega-powered PLC. Again, nothing wrong with that. But the cheapest model on that kickstarter is $139, and comes with the 16 MHz ATMega328 with something like 32K of flash and 2K of RAM. That model has no ethernet port, no RS-232 and no 485 ports. If you compare it to something like the Click range of PLCs, you'll find lots of similar and more capable PLCs in that price range.

Plus, judging by the comments on the kickstarter, he never delivered to many of his backers.

Same story with the RPi -- by the time it's packaged and certified for industrial use, the cost advantage for the hardware disappears.
 
Deffinitely, it is risky for big boys Suppliers due to the simple facts these great tools raspberrypi and arduino are much more cheaper and are ridicously fast.

Maybe I'm ignorant but what do you think happens with the speed when you extend the operating system to be as self-checking, failsafe and with online monitoring capacities like all 'normal' PLCs?

Kalle
 
I think the industry is due for a big shakeup. The big players are selling products that are barely different from what they sold 20-30 years ago. Most other markets have seen big benefits from the technology curve, whereas ours has mostly been dormant. We've integrated a lot of new pieces without changing the fundamental assumptions of what a PLC should be.

That said, I don't think an arduino/pi (as they currently stand) would be the answer. The product lifecycle concerns are a big one to me. Environmental concerns are solvable, but as others have said, it doesn't make cost sense at the scale they're currently at. Programming? I think it would be great if the industry could free itself from the shackles of ladder logic, but we would need to fundamentally change the way factories are staffed. You would need trade programmers along with the typical sparkies to be able to realistically support a system programmed in anything text based. Some electricians can learn PC type programming, but most I meet just don't want to.
 
I think that I could see microcontrollers (because in my opinion, that's all you are really using the Pi or Arduino for in this application) making a splash in the OEM market, given that an OEM will make a lot of the same machine with alterations. But I could never see them making any dent in the traditional PLC market in terms of plant wide applications. You could definitely save on initial cost, sure, but that is it. It's not like these things do the job of a PLC any better than a PLC, just comparable. Also I don't see how much easier programming with Arduino is over any of the major PLC brands available today. Granted, I did small electronics work before I did traditional computer programming, but I feel that Ladder is so much more intuitive than most other programming languages for industrial control (except for high math functions, FBD is king for that in my opinion). Disclaimer: I don't really know what they use to program an Arduino.

To sum it up I suppose, I really don't think that there is a problem with the current PLC market to warrant a serious demand for RaspberryPi or Arduino based control.
 
hi,

I would not be such an ignorant like 'KalleOlsen'. In my eyes, rpi or arduino is a big step forwards towards taking technology further. We all now what's new is scary but these playtools are used to launch rockets and gather data in space.

So, deffinitely it sounds promising however a lot of tests and validation activities need to take place before you could start using them seriously in the industry.

Deffinitely, it is risky for big boys Suppliers due to the simple facts these great tools raspberrypi and arduino are much more cheaper and are ridicously fast.

cheers

While I don't discount the capabilities of any modern microcontroller, calling him ignorant implies that you've been successful in convincing a large operation to abandon their PLC's and switch to a relatively new and untested (over many years) platform.

I can buy a Click PLC today and rest assured that if it fails, more than likely get a replacement the next day and have the machine running again. I highly doubt you can say the same for an Arduino.

Until maintenance people are trained in other languages besides ladder, I'll be sticking to PLC's.
 
We have PLC's that have been running 24/7 for the last 20 years.
I'll be willing to look at an Arduino/Pi solution if you can show me consistent similar performance.....
 
Interesting to see split opinions here.

I think we all agree that currently Arduino based controllers cannot compete with PLC's at this stage or for a good foreseeable future.

But some see that they could be utilised for smaller applications, and possibly see future potential for more?
 
How would one prove CE compliance for RPi or Arduino? If you're working on a hobby project or something similar you don't need to. But if you're talking about machinery in a production environment you probably don't like to be held accountable if an accident occurs. Real PLCs have all the approvals needed to comply with the rules. All you have to care for is that your programming also meets the set standards.

BTW Don't be surprised if some day (maybe even today) one or the other PLC appears to be powered by the same processor found in RPi or Arduino. But then again, the PLC manufacturer will provide all the approvals you need...
 
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I do think that decoupling the PLC software layer from the hardware is a likely next step in PLC system evolution. We already have Codesys, which is theoretically a common software platform that can be leveraged across multiple HW platforms. I see other open platforms (possibly open source) following.

It might start with open source firmware for popular COTS hardware. I've seen that happen for ipods, Android phones, wifi routers, and many other consumer devices.

Once we have multiple interchangable SW platforms, then companies/individuals will start making HW that works with all of them. There's a reason that a PLC is more rugged than the typical arduino right now, but that doesn't mean that rugged Arduinos couldn't start to be more common later.

What the future WON'T look like is HW intended for hobbyists running factories. It might not be that far off, though.
 

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