Hello, I am new to Ignition and I have little knowledge about PLC Programming and would like some help to understand things. We use AB 5700 for our PLC system and PLC programming is done using logix designer 5000 by our PLC programmers (Function Block diagram) . And the tags are created there wihich are loaded onto Ignition OPC server so that we can use it to design on Vision/Perspective.
Can the AB PLC programming done on logix designer be replaced by Ignition? or is it something totally different? Is SFC in Ignition something similar to that?
You cant replace logix5000 but I have used Ignition(really just the script console) to generate text that could be copied and pasted into logix500 to generate repetitive code.
The Logix software can program a PLC. A PLC should execute the more basic tasks (if input X becomes high, enable output Y for Z time).
The Logix software is also responsible for the configuration of the PLC. F.e. what data should be exposed to other systems.
Ignition doesn’t program the PLC. It just takes data from PLCs to visualise, and can write to the PLC (mostly on user actions).
You could create a “dumb” PLC that just exposes all its inputs and outputs, and use Ignition to read and write those. But you’ll soon end up with performance and timing issues since everything needs to pass over the network.
What @diat150 says is that he uses scripting to generate PLC code. We also generate PLC code, but you can generate PLC code in any programming language. So that’s not specific to Ignition. It’s just that PLC code is often repetitive, thus lends itself to be generated.
It’s best to stick to what everything is made for: the PLC for machine logic, and Ignition for the visualisation and user interaction (and perhaps some business logic).
Note that even @diat isn’t replacing RSLogix with Ignition–just programmatically creating code that can be pasted into RSLogix. You can think of RSLogix and the newer Studio5000 as the “designer” for a modern Rockwell PLC. Ignition’s OPC driver for Logix is a “client” of the data in the PLC that the Logix “designer” set up for external use.
