Possible M4 Portland PLC Test Bed
From PTAGISWiki
Nadia,
I need your help in determining what direction to go in and what will be most useful for you and take up the least amount of space in your office. We can go as complicated as you would like or as simple as you would like. I would like to provide you with an HMI (Human Machine Interface) similar to what is found at all PLC sites. The HMI is used primarily for entering in sample rates but can be used for other things such as a visual indication of counter and timer values. I could even provide you with a gate indication page where a GATE OPEN message appeared every time the PLC received a RTO (Request To Open) from M4 along with a count of how many times the PLC received a RTO from M4.
If you could take a moment to look at these pictures and let me know what would work the best for you I would greatly appreciate it. I will try to list the pros and cons of each.
The following picture is of a box containing a PLC inside. On the outside is a HMI (PV600) used by site personnel to enter in sample rates. Currently in Multimon when the sample rate is changed the new sample rate is written to MM. I believe this will be a requirement for M4. I can provide you this box and install your PLC in it. I can also put switches and lights on the outside of the box similar to the switch you see above the HMI. I can give you counters in the HMI as to how many times a gate fire ect. The Pro's to this is that everything is contained in/on one box. The Con's to this is that the box is large and somewhat heavy and you would have to have room for it somewhere convenient to where you are testing M4. There also may not be enough surface space on the large box to install a switch and light that covers every function a site such as MCJ might have.
If you would like to have switches and lights closer to where you are working I can provide a switch box and a light box (not shown in the picture below but would look like a switch box but have lights where the switches are) that would be attached to cables from the large box containing the HMI and PLC. The Pros to this is that you could have the switch box and light box at different locations in your office (I would need to know the cable length you desire) and when you are done you could coil up the cable and tuck things out of the way. The Cons to this is that you will have 2-3 cables between the PLC/HMI box and the switch box and light box. I can still give you the HMI screens described above but you will have to view them from wherever the large box is placed in your office (you won't want to move the large box too much as it is somewhat heavy)
If you do not want a HMI I can provide you with a switch box and a light box and it will be wired into your PLC similarly to the following picture. The Pro's to this is that it doesn't take up much space. The Con's to this is that you cannot test the sample rate functionality of the messaging and the cabling issues listed above.
Side View in relation to a PC.
