I’ve been playing with Ignition and so far it’s very easy and powerfull, all I need, perfect
Most things are done manually in my company and we have a Scada installed (SpecView) but not using it to save anything, just a screen running numbers to check 9 small production lines, each of the latter runs using Eurotherm controllers changed manually. We have a mysql DB too but nothing linked.
I would like to scrap all that and have some local HMI on each production line with Ignition as the main system looking at the whole production. With Ignition talking to mysql and input recipe change for controllers. Local HMI is in case main system goes down or if you dont want to walk too much
I am a newbie in process engineering, educated in another field. Learnt OPC recently.
Ignition vision panel edition look like it could do the trick but there’s no history or sql access.
Basically my boss doesn’t like a central system as if it goes down, then it means you can’t use any of the lines, which is fair enough.
PLC --> Local HMI --> Main (Ignition) or PLC --> Local (HMI) / Main (Ignition) in parallel, if it’s possible. With both systems being able to ‘take over’ on the other one, meaning if a change is made locally then it’s updated on the main and vice versa. Because there’s x lines so far but growing, I am not sure if I need x Ignition full packages in a way or if it’s possible to find an outside low cost HMI to do the local bit. Local and Main having access to SQL and history too so that no data is lost in the event of a breakdown.
I forget, but I think you get the ability to query a local sql database w/ the panel edition don’t you? I haven’t played w/ the panel edition yet.
If that is the case(one of the mods will have to answer this) then you could setup MySql replication across all your ‘panels’ and the main MySql database.
I know nothing about OPC or process engineering. I do know a fair bit about SCADA though.
[quote]Basically my boss doesn't like a central system as if it goes down, then it means you can't use any of the lines, which is fair enough.
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We all have our restrictions we have to work under. Is he worried about loss of control or loss of history. Ignition can cater to both but the solution will(may?) look different.
I think your already looking at it.
possible different solutions:
Central Ignition in a cluster. Multiple machines with a redundant database setup. No single point of failure. You could go so far as locating them in different places with redundant connections depending on your level of paranoia.
Hub and spoke. Central server with a gateway running the sql bridge module for each line. The sql bridges gathers the data and forwards it to the central server. If the central server is down, data is stored locally until it's back. Add a Panel edition for local status and control (assuming all your data comes PLC's and not SQLTags).
Full Ignition servers for each line. (possibly redundant depending on your level of paranoia). Central ignition server that uses retargeting to allow someone to control/view any line.
Yes, you’re right that the panel edition doesn’t have database access, but that’s only for the display side (“panel” is a licensing level for the vision module). If you were to put the sqlbridge module down there, it could write to the database. For display, you could normally launch the main project from the central gateway on the panels, and then switch to the local “control” project if the central gateway wasn’t available. How the control project was set up might depend on how different each HMI is. If they were all the same, you could have one project that you copy to each one. An important feature to know about is “retargeting”- this is where Ignition clients can switch between different projects, even across servers. If you created a “control project” that was on each panel edition hmi, and a “data analysis project” that was hosted central, you could bounce between them seamlessly.
Having the sqlbridge on each HMI probably wouldn’t make sense- either you would have separate systems logging the same data, or you wouldn’t really have much redundancy. It would probably make more sense to simply have a redundant Ignition set up centrally.
or process engineering. I do know a fair bit about SCADA though.