New PLC on the market.... Arduino fans and IoT

https://www.hackster.io/news/arduin...he-industrial-internet-of-things-d97f1d6b868a

https://store-usa.arduino.cc/pages/opta?selectedStore=us

Im going to buy one once they come out... I like seeing more options on the market

Not a lot of detail on the announcement.

I imagine the support for the IEC languages will be taken from openPLC or similar (I think it was Beremiz the editor for those languages), but am a bit confused about deploying a microprocessor that can do some interesting things with 10 inputs and 4 outputs. I'm assuming obviously that there's no analog IO on the unit since the box doesn't show any expansion connectors (I may be wrong too since it's just a rendering).

When looking at the AutomationDirect offering with stackable IO of different kinds, I'm left wondering whether this has any legs to move forward?

Obviously at this size, it's not going to be used in stuff that can't be turned off to download a program, but I wonder how the debugging is done too.

Nice for this to come to market, obviously, but not sure it'll survive.

The hackster io link talks about 2x analog (12-bit)
The front-plate, upper level says AI +- (I don't see it being two channels)


The hackster io link also talks about LCD controller and HDMI; that is more interesting..

exabmorgan said:

The front-plate, upper level says AI +- (I don't see it being two channels)

Click to expand...

I can't see the bit where it said AI, but on the right side it does say A(-) B(+) for an RS485 connection.
On the inputs it says (DGT/0-10v)

There's also some stuff on the specs about a temperature probe, but it's not clear if that's onboard or if it's configurable to a thermocouple/RTD connection.

From the form factor, it's going to be in direct competition with Siemens LOGO, Schneider Zelio, Mitsubishi Alpha etc. so it's going to have to be very competitive and have IO modules available.

cardosocea said:

I imagine the support for the IEC languages will be taken from openPLC or similar
[..]
Obviously at this size, it's not going to be used in stuff that can't be turned off to download a program, but I wonder how the debugging is done too.

Click to expand...

So you are saying there is no online programming with openPLC ?

In my opinion, if a device is called a "PLC" it must include online programming.
Yes I know that historically PLCs often did not have online programming, but this is a must-have today, even for a micro PLC.

Kunbus has a Raspberry PI with a Codesys runtime, and with that you have the ability to use 'Online Change'.

Puddle said:

There's also some stuff on the specs about a temperature probe, but it's not clear if that's onboard or if it's configurable to a thermocouple/RTD connection.

Click to expand...

Most likely the internal chip temperature sensor? Seems a very big stretch to call it that, but it's not uncommon as a publicity stunt. I'd be interested to see if they even bothered fitting the 32678Hz crystal to the internal timer of the board to get the RTC functionality.

JesperMP said:

So you are saying there is no online programming with openPLC ?

Click to expand...

I don't know, I'm just thinking what may be possible.

I've browsed through the openPLC website every now and then and have seen a large increase in the development of it. Originally it was aimed at programming a normal Arduino (32KB program memory running at 16MHz) with IEC languages, so all it did was translate the IEC language to C/ASM and then compiled it and downloaded. As you can imagine, with a chip that small online programming was not possible.

It's since developed much more where the software is actually aimed at raspberry pi and the smaller style arduinos are considered for IO. So there's definitely possibility for online change.

Bear in mind that openPLC is or was a personal project. Arduino may use it or parts of it, or they may well get someone to develop it for them...

The chip they're using is powerful and should have enough memory to allow online mods, but it would mean that they have to create the OS to run on the chip and accept compiled blocks to be run. I don't doubt of the Arduino team's capabilities, but doubt that they'll implement it. I may well be very wrong though.

I am thinking and does the LOGO allow online changes?

EDIT:

Just thought that STM32 has a vested interest in this so they may well develop some of the functionality and hand it over to Arduino.

cardosocea said:

I am thinking and does the LOGO allow online changes?

Click to expand...

I don't know about LOGO.
The new device is called a "micro PLC" and not a "smart relay".
So I would compare it against an S7-1200 for example.

JesperMP said:

I don't know about LOGO.
The new device is called a "micro PLC" and not a "smart relay".
So I would compare it against an S7-1200 for example.

Click to expand...

Fair point. I don't think this will even remotely get close to an S7-1200. I was comparing form factors, hence the comparison to the LOGO.

It seems that you can expand with industrial grade Arduino expansion boards. But I cannot see how they are installed or how you connect to the IO on these boards.
Hardware-wise it does seems to be on the level of a LOGO.

They write nothing about the PLC part.
But they do say that the CPU is a dual core ARM M7.
As a comparison, Beckhoff has a low end CPU with ARM M7 (https://www.beckhoff.com/de-de/produkte/ipc/embedded-pcs/cx7000-arm-cortex-m7/).
So potentially it could be a 'fully-fledged' PLC on the software side.

I suppose Modbus-485 is going to make a comeback because of this. LOL theoretically you can expand a lot by using Modbus on that 485 port.

cardosocea said:

I suppose Modbus-485 is going to make a comeback because of this. LOL theoretically you can expand a lot by using Modbus on that 485 port.

Click to expand...

Given that there's no additional information about communication, I was thinking that the whole thing could be used pretty much as a cheap remote IO unit and using the 485 to feed back to a wider control system. I would imagine they'll be priced around the same as a LOGO, which gives quite a lot of IO for the money.

On the Reddit/R/PLC thread about this the co-founder of Arduino was in the thread, but wouldn't answer what programming software was going to be used to program in LAD,FBD,ST,IL. Just, and I quote

"We have partnered with a company that develops professional PLC IDEs and they made a custom version for Arduino which include cloud/IoT capabilities.

It's a PRO tool made by a company that already supplies a number of Industrial Automation companies."

I mean I'm still going to buy one, but I'd like to know who this company is please.

AutomationDirect

I work for a small combustion controls company that almost exclusively uses Automationdirect PLCs coupled with either Red Lion or CMore HMIs and I dont see them going anywhere anytime soon.

I came from a firm that runs 100% AB/Rockwell and consider Automationdirect as "tinkertoys" but I think they have a lot of potential.

Directsoft 6 is pretty good at some things, but the software is clunky and I wish we would switch over to the productivity suite as that seems like the better choice, but they have been doing it this way for years and dont like change unfortunately.

Engineerj22 said:

I mean I'm still going to buy one, but I'd like to know who this company is please.

Click to expand...

It seems to be Finder.

It does seem to have AI, From the tech specs:
InputConfigurable digital / analog (0-10V) input8