PLC Selection for Beginners

General Discussion
1

Hello,

I'm in the process of learning Ignition and would like to purchase a beginner PLC. My focus is more towards the oil / gas sector. Do you have any suggestions? Siemens? It appears Ignition has drivers for the Siemens S7 - 1200, 1500, 300, and 400. I would like to keep the budget under $500.

There seems to be a lot of training on the internet and books for the Siemens.

Thanks,

C

2

Learning Ignition and learning PLCs are separate things. You don't need to have a PLC to learn or practice using Ignition.

Ignition has drivers for all major PLC brands and protocols, not just Siemens. It's been a few years since I touched a PLC but you're unlikely to find an S7 in that budget. If you want something cheap and basic you could look at an AB Micro800 or Omron NX1P. With that said, you should focus your learning efforts on the platform most commonly used in your industry.

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3

Also AutomationDirect Click PLCs

Pinging some of our users that I remember are oil and gas: @dcamp1 @diat150 @craigb
They may have some suggestions for you. :slight_smile:

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4

dont bother with 300 or 400, they are legacy now.300 is already in phase out mode

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Not to mention you will need the TIA software if you go the siemens route, around 2k plus SUS if you want to keep upgrading. 1200 series CPU's are much cheaper then the 1500 and they come with onboard IO's where as the 1500 doesn't.

Automation direct PLCs's work and I believe their software is free and they have many many courses, if you have a spare raspberry pi you can load up code-sys. That will give you a PLC environment (ladder, function blocks, stl) that you can connect to various devices and use OPC, MQTT etc to connect to ignition.

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Can confirm, their PLC software is free. Can download it now and start bashing some code out without even having a PLC at your desk yet.

7

craigb and ryan.white,

Have you used the Automation Direct's plc? Any model you would suggest?

Thanks,

C

8

We work in O&G in the US primarily and our customers primarly use Allen Bradley ControlLogix paired with various I/O. Most have been ControlLogix I/O, but did a FAT today with a customer using Flex 5000, and another customer is thinking of moving to Flex 5000 also. We've got a few projects in Australia and Mexico also that were ControlLogix. (These are all mainly cryo facilities, so midstream gas processing or renewable gas processing - landfill gas, digesters, etc)

Edit: I know you were asking for a beginner PLC, but you're probably not going to find anything in the ControlLogix or CompactLogix line that's beginner/cheap.

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What is your end goal for using Ignition in the Oil & Gas Industry.

I'm in the Oil & Gas industry.

We use Ignition, and Mqtt. I have about 400 AB-Micro800 series Plcs along with Maple Systems Hmi's in the field. We also have our own "Cellular Private Network" that everything is connected to. We process a littler of 700,000 tags daily.

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