Node-Red with Allen Bradley PLC

Industrial
1

Hello All,
I am a university lecturer teaching industrial automation. We teach RSLogix PLC programming for Allen Bradley PLCs. We are now trying to integrate Node-red with the physical PLCs using node-red-contrib-pccc. It is working fine with the grace of God, Almighty.
Now I want to connect RSlogix emulator (without any physical PLC) with the node-red. Both of them will be on the same computer. Is it doable? Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Tanveer

2

I think you are out of luck...

https://support.softwaretoolbox.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3920/~/top-server-with-rockwell-rslogix-emulate-5000

3

You could try node-red-contrib-dde. I don't know if it would work for this or not.

Chris

4

You should contact your local Allen Bradley representative to ask them if you can get a discount by qualified educational means. You should be able to purchase soft logix PLC to do all you need. Also, having a real PLC to wire it to real world I/O is very educational.

Is your aim to just prove you can bypass Allen Bradley licensing by using Node-RED as your world interface? I cannot help but wonder about the ethics involed in your goal.

5

I think you misread the original post. Nothing TanveerSaleh said even remotely suggests an attempt to bypass Rockwell's licensing (and ridiculous prices). They already interfaced Node Red with a physical PLC. They want to interface Node Red with the emulator now.

Chris

6

Perhaps. But then you want to interface the emulator. An emulator is just that. It is a means to learn about the programming aspects and avoid the real world interface. You are saying you want to supply Node-RED as the world interface. Oh, sorry, "They".

7

I understand your point, but an emulator can make a great development tool and could be very useful for developing an HMI without the full complement of physical hardware.

Chris

8

The HMI point-of-view is interesting. Using dashboard? or other? The best interface from Node-RED to the ... emulation would be MQTT. If the emulator has TCP functions that work and no MQTT interface, you can program TCP "Tags" back and forth. That said, the extra TCP route to I/O would be pretty rediculaous. You may as well use a Raspberry PI and be done with it.

9

I use Dashboard for my applications. As much as i love how uibuilder looks, Ive never been able to get a handle on it. It's powerful, but there simply wasnt enough documentation and examples available at the time I tried it.

I have Pis running Node Red spread throughout our facility (each interfaced to different platforms - PLC5, SLC500, and ControlLogix). Each sends data (error and status information) back to a main unit that stores the info in MySQL and displays info of immediate interest on monitors for pertinent personnel.

Reading the tags from such systems is easy with Ethernet/IP. No reason to get into MQTT. Other systems require interfacing to RSlinx OPC server which is also easy.

Chris

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10

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