![]() I have 30 days to try it out and will write a bit more after I see what it can do. It is certainly more within the price range I am looking for at 695 Euro’s/seat, and it says it works with Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Modicon and CodeSys. I also just downloaded Factory I/O’s free trial of PLC simulation software. From what I understand, the full-blown design package is more like $20,000. I could buy an actual PLC, HMI and software for each student station at that price, though the pneumatics and hydraulic training capability would be nice. Unfortunately for me, the price is still too high to use on a per-student basis. There is also electrical circuit simulation capability. The PLC software itself is pretty basic, but it does appear to contain most of the instructions needed for training. There are drawing tools that can be used to animate the visualization, but the programmer would have to be pretty adept at creating graphics it is not 3D. The software seemed heavily oriented toward the pneumatic and hydraulic simulations, libraries of components could be imported from several manufacturers and placed into the simulation. A PLC program can be written that will drive pneumatic and hydraulic circuits, which in turn can be embedded in a graphical simulation of a machine or process. Unfortunately I don’t qualify for the Educational Edition, which would probably be less expensive than the $6000 price tag of the Professional. There are two versions of this software, the Professional Edition, and the Educational Edition. Last week I also participated in a demo of Famic’s Automation Studio. This list of simulation and modeling software on Automation World’s site had a lot of good products from Cybosoft, Mynah, Cenit and others, but they are not compatible with PLC or automation software. I found a lot of other plant floor simulators when checking online. It doesn’t interface with the Siemens Step7 software though, and even if it did it would hardly be generic… This can be used to create a virtual factory floor. In the picture at the top of this post is Siemen’s PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) software. There are a lot of packages that simulate factory floor equipment. I also would like to link the simulation program to some graphics so that students can visualize their programming results. It also looks like The Learning Pit kind of does what I am planning to do, online PLC training. Again, for me this is too brand-specific. I haven’t checked this out, but at only $35 it looks like a good option for those wanting to play around with Allen-Bradley’s SLC and Micrologix platform. The center image above shows a screenshot of “LogixPro”, available from The Learning Pit. The problem with that is that it is far too expensive for students. This pretty much eliminates any of the major brand’s emulators, though I have been using Allen-Bradley’s RSLogix 5000 software with aliases to generic tag structures with some success. All of this would need to be accessible in a list such as a symbol or tag database. The blue text could then be used either as a symbol (for non-tag-based platforms) or as a tag. ![]() The intent is to be able to substitute any platform’s address where the red caption is, or make it invisible if using tags. In my PLC training manual ( recently published by the way), I use a generic addressing method as shown in this image. One of my requirements is that the software be either non-brand-specific, or multi-platform. A Process or Machine simulator that includes PLC and HMI programming tools and visualization of components. A PLC programming simulator that is free or very low cost that can be used by students on their own computer to simulate and do exercises, and 2. My intent here is to find two different things: 1. In my quest to produce online training classes I have been investigating some of the different types of industrial automation and PLC simulators available.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |