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innoaloe

PLC to PLC Wireless Communication

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Hello lads,

I wanna ask if anyone have attempted to connect two or more Omron PLC via wireless before, and if so how you manage that?

My understanding so far is that one PLC should be connected by Ethernet Cable to a Wireless Access Point, and the other one should connected to a Wireless Client. After that the Client tries to automatically connect to the Access Point, then both PLC can communicate via FINS/UDP or FINS/TCP easily.

I want to test out two PLC for now, but on actual setup there might be 10 Wireless Clients

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance

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I have several systems that communicate using Engenius wireless bridges, but only between two PLCs. I suspect that bandwidth might be an issue for ten PLCs with the units that I used, but there are newer ones out that are much faster.

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12 minutes ago, Mendon Systems said:

I have several systems that communicate using Engenius wireless bridges, but only between two PLCs. I suspect that bandwidth might be an issue for ten PLCs with the units that I used, but there are newer ones out that are much faster.

Thanks for replying!

So in short it IS possible. Just to elaborate, is one of the wireless act as an access point? Or is both wireless act as a bridge between two LAN?
Because AFAIK for multiple PLC, wireless bridge is very hard to configure, so I prefer access point method instead.
I intend to use MOXA's wireless unit for this purpose. Bandwidth won't be a problem I think

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The Engenius units that I used could be set up as either a wireless access point or as a wireless bridge.

In one configuration, I had them set up as a bridge to extend a LAN to another building. That one used outdoor wireless bridges with directional antennas to cover an opens space of about 500'.

In another setup, I had one wireless access point connected to the plant network and two more that were mounted on machines which were periodically moved around. Those wireless units used "rabbit ear" antennas and had a limited range of around 150'.

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On 6/19/2016 at 2:39 AM, Mendon Systems said:

The Engenius units that I used could be set up as either a wireless access point or as a wireless bridge.

In one configuration, I had them set up as a bridge to extend a LAN to another building. That one used outdoor wireless bridges with directional antennas to cover an opens space of about 500'.

In another setup, I had one wireless access point connected to the plant network and two more that were mounted on machines which were periodically moved around. Those wireless units used "rabbit ear" antennas and had a limited range of around 150'.

Thank you Sir.

I had successfully tested this using AP to Client configuration. Might do other testing using Bridge mode.

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The  bridge mode can be useful for applications where you want to strictly limit access to the wireless. It can be set up to only connect to specific MAC addresses so unknown devices cannot connect to the wireless. Other than that, I did not see much difference.

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