Hard drive for ControlLogix Chassis?

[gzjohnson]

Hi - I'm a newbie to the PLC world but was recently asked if we could store more than the 2G that the CompactLogix 5370 allows by its max size SD card.

This controller is hooked up to an industrial water purification system and they want to track all of the water quality measurements, together with all of the system log data for post-analysis. This gets tricky as my site has restrictions about connecting anything on the OT network to any place one might normally dump this data over the 'net.

So, local storage is apparently the only option.

I see that this thing has options for USB and Ethernet. Has anyone experience connecting/using a USB hard drive or network-attached storage device on this type of controller?

 

[tlf30]

I would look into the 1756-HIST module.
https://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/in/1756-in611_-en-p.pdf

As far as I know the 2GB limit on the SD card is absolute.

EDIT: Sorry, I just realized you have a compact. The in-chassis historian will not work for you.

 

[JosephMont]

How often are you looking to poll the data? You could create an array that was a UDT with each day and sample frequency.

Example if you wanted each day to log every hour. The UDT would

Historical.Day[Array of 32]
Historical.Hour[Array of 25]

Then utilize the date time to move the sample into the corresponding spot.

You would need to export the tag monthly.

 

[JosephMont]

Or buy a red lion data logger.

 

[robertmee]

Hi - I'm a newbie to the PLC world but was recently asked if we could store more than the 2G that the CompactLogix 5370 allows by its max size SD card.

This controller is hooked up to an industrial water purification system and they want to track all of the water quality measurements, together with all of the system log data for post-analysis. This gets tricky as my site has restrictions about connecting anything on the OT network to any place one might normally dump this data over the 'net.

So, local storage is apparently the only option.

I see that this thing has options for USB and Ethernet. Has anyone experience connecting/using a USB hard drive or network-attached storage device on this type of controller?

The USB port only supports programming. Any kind of ethernet haddrive would have a form of windows CE or Linux on it to manage read/writes, so you'd be basically connecting a PC to it anyway. I'd configure a small Linux PC running Ignition and SQL and store the data in a proper database. The CF card on the CompactLogix isn't going to survive repetitive writes, and they are notorious for losing data. So if this facility has any kind of data retention policies, the plan to use a CF card is a non starter in my opinion.

 

[OkiePC]

Or buy a red lion data logger.

+1 to this. A red lion HMI, Flex Edge or Data Station Plus can log the data in csv format in a very user friendly way and could even FTP it to a PC on the local network automatically. We have one water customer that makes extensive use of the FTP feature and they automate pulling data from the FTP PC into their reporting systems. We probably have ten years worth of CL2 and Turbidity data as well as filter flow rates and a shedload of other stuff stored on that machine.

 

[gzjohnson]

Thanks! -

How often are you looking to poll the data? You could create an array that was a UDT with each day and sample frequency.

Example if you wanted each day to log every hour. The UDT would

Historical.Day[Array of 32]
Historical.Hour[Array of 25]

Then utilize the date time to move the sample into the corresponding spot.

You would need to export the tag monthly.

I'll look more into the polling frequency and data storage array.

 

[gzjohnson]

CF Card reliability

The USB port only supports programming. Any kind of ethernet haddrive would have a form of windows CE or Linux on it to manage read/writes, so you'd be basically connecting a PC to it anyway. I'd configure a small Linux PC running Ignition and SQL and store the data in a proper database. The CF card on the CompactLogix isn't going to survive repetitive writes, and they are notorious for losing data. So if this facility has any kind of data retention policies, the plan to use a CF card is a non starter in my opinion.

Good to know about the reliability of the CF card.
Do you know of any small chassis pcs that fit into the ControlLogix chassis or do I just need to put one somewhere that is reachable over IP on the OT network?

 

[gzjohnson]

Thank you!

Or buy a red lion data logger.

Thank you - I downloaded the data sheet and will look into it. Much obliged.

 

[gzjohnson]

Thank you!

+1 to this. A red lion HMI, Flex Edge or Data Station Plus can log the data in csv format in a very user friendly way and could even FTP it to a PC on the local network automatically. We have one water customer that makes extensive use of the FTP feature and they automate pulling data from the FTP PC into their reporting systems. We probably have ten years worth of CL2 and Turbidity data as well as filter flow rates and a shedload of other stuff stored on that machine.

I appreciate the +1, looking into it.

 

[I_Automation]

Another thing to consider is the power supplied by a USB port.


SD cards use very little electricity and hard drives have electronics, solenoids and motors to drive. Even a SSD drive uses considerably more electricity than a SD card.
I have a USB port on my TV for recording and tried a SSD drive in it but it wouldn't power it up, also my WiFi router has 2 USB ports that 1 will handle a HDD but the other is only rated for a flash drive or a printer.

 

[Cheeseface]

An actual historian is a far better choice than what you're considering.

Just keep the computer on the local network. We set this kind of thing up all the time. Ignition's SQL Bridge + SQL Server Express + SSRS gives you a nice interface to your data. Kepware with it's database module is an alternative to Ignition, but I don't feel it is as easy to configure.

Any external device you consider is going to be functionally equivalent to the setup I just described.

But if you absolutely cannot have anything that "looks like a PC", then get an industrial computer running Linux and the same above components -- again, no different. Even a raspberry pi with a usb stick can do this, but anything Linux-based is not as easy to maintain and/or handover to someone else to maintain.

One thing to keep in mind when using a PLC memory-based array for history: when you save a PLC program, it saves the current state of memory. Downloading that saved file to the PLC will clobber any history accumulated between being saved and the download.

 

[robertmee]

An actual historian is a far better choice than what you're considering.

Just keep the computer on the local network. We set this kind of thing up all the time. Ignition's SQL Bridge + SQL Server Express + SSRS gives you a nice interface to your data. Kepware with it's database module is an alternative to Ignition, but I don't feel it is as easy to configure.

Any external device you consider is going to be functionally equivalent to the setup I just described.

But if you absolutely cannot have anything that "looks like a PC", then get an industrial computer running Linux and the same above components -- again, no different. Even a raspberry pi with a usb stick can do this, but anything Linux-based is not as easy to maintain and/or handover to someone else to maintain.

One thing to keep in mind when using a PLC memory-based array for history: when you save a PLC program, it saves the current state of memory. Downloading that saved file to the PLC will clobber any history accumulated between being saved and the download.

Second a small industrial pc running ignition.

 

[robertmee]

Good to know about the reliability of the CF card.
Do you know of any small chassis pcs that fit into the ControlLogix chassis or do I just need to put one somewhere that is reachable over IP on the OT network?

No chassis mount that I'm aware of....just get a black box PC with a SSD and Ethernet card and that's all you need.