Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

David Dudley <[email protected]> · Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:28:36 -0400

Plan right now is to use Irmis as our hardware and configuration management
system.  We're expanding and re-targeting it to be able to track everything
from the field equipment on one end all the way through the wiring system,
physical PLC wiring configuration, up to hopefully a fair amount of the PLC
logic.

Currently, the only PLC we've looked at the has the capability of accepting
a complete definition from the IRMIS system looks like probably the AB.  It
can load and store XML files that can describe the complete PLC program and
I/O configuration.

GE appears to have the capability of doing the same thing, to some degree,
but so far I have been unable to get concrete information on it.

I'm looking at the PACSystem RS7i system because it's VME64 based, has high
I/O count modules, and fits in a 19" rack.

Hope to get more information this week.

David

On 7/19/09 6:43 PM, "Bryce Karnaghan" <[email protected]>
wrote:

> David
> 
> Also look at the programming tools, we use mostly Schneider PLCs (although we
> do have most other flavours on site) and UnityPro to program them. The backend
> of UnityPro is XML driven and so you can use Unix "Make" and your favourite
> regular expression/string handling tools to build the whole PLC from a script.
> Very handy  for large I/O counts where you have a lot of similar code that
> becomes tedious to manage in the native click and point environment.
> 
> If you mange these scripts in CVS or similar it also becomes very easy to diff
> the scripts to see what might have changed between versions.
> 
> regards
> 
> Bryce Karnaghan | Controls Specialist | Australian Synchrotron
> 
> p: (03) 8540 4135 | f: (03) 8540 4200 | m: 0423 844 592
> 
> [email protected] | www.synchrotron.org.au
> 
> 800 Blackburn Road, Clayton, Victoria 3168
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
> Behalf Of David Dudley
> Sent: Saturday, 18 July 2009 5:50 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: GE Fanuc
> 
> Yes, I'd very much like to get in contact with your local expert.
> 
> We're looking at the AB ControlLogix and CompactLogix (particularly the
> Compact) as well.  Also looking at the Siemens S7-300 and Yokogawa FA-M3
> product lines.
> 
> They all definitely have advantages and disadvantages.
> The real plus for the AB is it's support of CIP, which puts interfacing with
> EPICS fairly easy.
> 
> The Siemens - well - it's Siemens - you either love them, or you don't.
> 
> Yokogawa certainly has an interesting product with the FA, for which there
> is an actual EPICS IOC that directly executes on the thing (although I'm
> told it's kind of expensive - I haven't seen any pricing on it).
> 
> The GE however, seems to have the kind of power and high point count
> integration we're needing.  None of the other PLCs have high channel count
> analogs (GE has 64 channel 16 bit), or high count Digitals (GE and Yokogawa
> both have 64 bit DI's and DO's).
> 
> Other problem is space.  Only the GE is going to easily fit 19" rack spaces
> efficiently.
> 
> Gotta expand my spreadsheet for comparison quite a bit.
> 
> David
> 
> 
> On 7/17/09 3:22 PM, "Elliott Wolin" <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> We plan to use Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PLC's for our control system,
>> but are using GE Fanuc core-duo cpu's for data acquisition. If you have
>> any interest in the latter I can put you in contact with our local expert.
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> Elliott
>> 
>> 
>> 
=============================================================================>>
=
>> ==
>> 
>> 
>>  Those raised in a morally relative or neutral environment will hold
>>    no truths to be self-evident.
>> 
>> 
>> Elliott Wolin
>> Staff Physicist, Jefferson Lab
>> 12000 Jefferson Ave
>> Suite 8 MS 12A1
>> Newport News, VA 23606
>> 757-269-7365
>> 
>> 
=============================================================================>>
=
>> ==
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> David Dudley wrote:
>>> I¹m over at BNL NSLS2 now, and have been given the task of providing
>>> recommendations as to the types of PLCs to support.
>>> 
>>> I¹ve been looking at the GE PACSystems among others, and Bob has
>>> suggested I should ask on the mailing list as to whether anyone has
>>> experience in using the GE Fanuc family in accelerator controls.
>>> 
>>> David Dudley
> 
> 
> <br>This message and any attachments may contain proprietary or confidential
> information. If you are not the intended recipient or you received the message
> in error, you must not use, copy or distribute the message. Please notify the
> sender immediately and destroy the original message. Thank you.

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System