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geniusintraining

Kontron ThinkIO

7 posts in this topic

Hello all: So a few weeks ago I saw my first CoDeSys program and I like it... :) So now I want to get a PLC that will run the software, so whats a good one?? I saw this one HERE but whats out there for a good price, remember I don't have an application (yet) I just want to learn it. Has any one use Kontron? Thanks Mark

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Hey geniusintraining, Turck has a programmable gateway that is a modular IO system. You can add any array of our IO slices you want. The gateway runs CoDeSys. Also, our HMI's run CoDeSys and have ethernet, serial, compactflash, a CANOpen master and a MODBus master. Some IO slices are digital IO, analog IO, rs232, rs485, RFID, counters, ssi, temperature, etc. Got to Turck and enter BL20PG* or BL67PG*. The BL20 is a screw or compression terminal type system and the BL67 is a quick disconnect system. TonyMonty

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Thanks Tony, Looks good but not much information about it on the site, I'll get a hold of my Turck rep and see if he has any more information Mark

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You could also try a soft PLC like TwinCAT from Beckhoff. It has built-in simple HMI, so you can simulate real IO with it. And you can evaluate it for free as long as you wish (30 days after each installation).

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GIT We use lots of Beckhoff stuff. Their documentation is not great. Not at all. In fact, is kind of sort of sucks. Well actually, no kind of sort of about it, it just plain sucks. The good news is, their US Tech support is really good. Not kind of sort of good, but really good. The other good news is their pricing is excellent and we have not had any reliability problems with it. We mainly use their IO on DeviceNet. In some benchmarks tests we ran we found that AB's point IO and Flex IO was a shade faster responding (I suspect because of Beckhoffs intermodule K bus), but the Beckhoff IO was no slouch, and its one hell of a lot cheaper. Thats a big hell of a lot. For most apps its really great stuff. Beckhoffs EtherCat buss is incredibly fast. Wago also makes a CODESYS PLC with IO modules that look almost identical to Beckhoffs modules. Beckhoff and Wago used to be sleep with each other. But they broke up when Beckhoff went its own way with buss development.

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I'll put in another good word for Beckhoff and TwinCAT. I've used them for 10 years and it has been one of the most reliable pieces of hardware. I really like it because the price is good and the software has some capabilties that no other PLC's do. Another nice thing is that you can download the demo software and use it for learning as a PC based platform. When it expires in 30 days just uninstall and re-install for another 30. If you buy one of their controllers (e.g. CX1000) , then you can use the downloaded software to program it indefinitely even after the expiration period. That is because only the PC based run-time expires, not the programming environment. If you write a program for PC based and want to move it to one fo their embedded controllers (PLC's) then the exact same program will work with no modifications.

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Thanks!! Just what I needed... I will be back for some programming advice after it comes in and I had a chance to really screw it up :) Mark

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