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What options for a "softPLC" do you know about? When I think of a softPLC, I think of a computer with I/O or remote I/O communicating to a PC via OPC. In this kind of arrangement, one can create a custom application in VisualC or something to do tasks. However, when I do an Internet search, I see softPLC's as being less of a PC with I/O to being a dedicated processor made exclusively for control. Such as that shown on "http://www.softplc.com/products.php". This kind of differs from my concept of a softPLC. Further, this kind of softPLC looks more like an actual PLC. Comments?

I thought I'd check into what you were saying. From the AB site, I pulled off the price for the Micrologix 1100. (1763-L16AWA, MicroLogix 1100, 16 Pt., $550.00) According to the information about the 1100 on the AB site, one would need RSLogix 500 to program it. (9324-RL0300ENE, RSLogix 500 Standard, $1,167.00) (This is assuming that it is a small company without a lot of automation infrastructure in place.) Anyway, PC based control can be more cost effective for some businesses than others. Further, depending on the architecture, a business might be able to use one of its older servers as the controller. This could make the cost of investment slimmer for some companies. Someday, the PC will be antiquated and some other technology will replace it, as well. Just as the Monks lost their jobs transcribing books to the evils of the printing press, the PLC will be replaced by something. Cheers.

I should have qualified my opinion. Automation was primarily the endevour of companies with deep pockets who were looking for economies of scale or controlling large difficult processes. Now we can readily see small scale automation in the "new" American manufacturing sector... micro-manufacturing where output is in terms of tens instead of thousands. In these small scale manufacturing operations, a PLC could be seen as overkill (especially an expensive AB PLC) when a simple remote I/O over EtherNet or Profibus connected to a PC and coupled with a safety relay, or two, can do the job. Personally, I can't see investing $5K or more in a system that only has 16 I/O or so. Now in larger systems, I'd agree that a PLC is the best way to go at this point.

Our business is centered around mobile robots; laser guided vehicles in particular. Despite the fact that our products move throughout factories and warehouses without the aid of an operator, we do not use PLC's. In fact, each vehicle has its own onboard multiprocessor computer. The vehicles communicate wirelessly with a central Windows-base server which manages traffic, diagnostics, etc. We've been using this scheme for years (20+) without the emergence of the conjectured worries of the PLC VS PC debate. The SoftPLC debate is really about whether or not a general all purpose computer and operating system can be augmented and configured to safely perform the duties of a PLC. In reality, the PLC is really a small dedicated computer running a propritary operating system. In time, the market will decide this debate. PLC's will probably always exist for those applications to which they are best suited and SoftPLC's will pick up new applications. In fact, I'd argue that those applications which are small and communicate via EtherNet will be the best candidates for SoftPLC deployment.

CX Programmer is the latest Omron programming software. Before CX Programmer and after Syswin (which was offered by Omron's European group), Omron offered a package called CPT that they gave out for free. Perhaps, you can get a copy of that. Of course, you could always go with the old DOS based software called LSS.