I have been tasked with learning ignition and eventually assist in connecting it to some of our critical production equipment. I am coming into this at ground level knowledge wise with this and there is currently no real SCADA system at our facility.
I have a few questions:
I feel it would be wise to purchase a PLC and assemble a test rig with a few sensors…etc of some sorts prior to trying to deploy to real production equipment. Would you agree?
If so what are some PLCs that play well with ignition? We have a lot of AB and Siemens PLCs currently. Perhaps a AB micro that uses CCW or something else? Ideally it would a PLC that is easy to connect to network and into ignition.
Any other pointers you’d want to know if you were in this situation? Any input in appreciated as this is very new and will be a long road to achieved the desired results with my current teams knowledge level.
I'd vote for CompactLogix instead. The Micro800 series can only be connected to Ignition by Modbus, which requires manual configuration in the device and on the Ignition side. CompactLogix will be fully browsable and drag n drop.
Aside from that, maybe a Siemens S7-1200 with the OPC UA server licensed for a more "modern" experience with acquiring data from a PLC / 3rd party OPC UA connection. You could also double up and make a connection with our Siemens driver to this. The driver connection will require manual tag addressing, unlike the OPC UA connection.
Thank you Kevin! Great reply with input I was looking for.
One last question:
1-2 members of the team that will be working on this have limited knowledge of PLCs and Ignition. In your opinion do you think they should spend time making sure they have a solid foundation of PLCs/Programming or focus on ignition…vice versa?
Yes, i like to do as much as possible in a development environment first. Having Physical PLC's and sensors allows you to do some bench testing. If you are just starting out, it will be especially helpful.
In reality, the answer to this is probably heavily dependent on what they will be doing with Ignition.
IMO, however, a solid foundation in PLCs/Programming cant hurt if their primary function will be to design interfaces with the PLC's. Understanding what can be better handled at the device level is sometimes overlooked but will payoff in the long run.
AB CompactLogix are a good choice if you want physical hardware to test against.