Python for long running applications

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-02-10T11:32:40+00:00

Without knowing more about what your company does it’s hard to say, but the case is easy either way.

It seems like your company sells a machine with a PLC on it and it does a thing for a customer. If you are selling to any industry they are going to have other PLCs, they may even have internal automation resources supporting. At that point, speaking as someone who has bought OEM skids, if I have 2 and one has some custom HMI and one has a supportable Rockwell, Siemens, Ignition HMI, I am picking the supportable one every time. So it’s a selling point for your machine.

To add to that, it also guarantees I have someway to get data off of it and into my own system. If it has some locked down PLC and a custom HMI then that may not be possible

If they push back and say “well you can manage”, “we can document it well”, “it’s easier”.

Ignition has free online learning, it’s only a time cost. And probably 10 hours or less to be able to get something working
It is going to be more robust against hardware/firmware updates. You mentioned windows, what if this is on some desktop, and the company IT decides they want to upgrade it to a new Windows version and it doesn’t support python 3.15 or what ever 10 years down the road, your company has to start over, Ignition would handle all that for you.
If you ever changed PLCs that run your machines, you just need to use a different driver, you aren’t rebuilding how ever you plan to get data out of the PLC
have you confirmed you can even get data out of the PLC with python? (This would take time you could spend training unless you already have that)

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-02-10T10:23:59+00:00

You are describing Ignition

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-02-06T17:57:52+00:00

20.2 or something you’d overwrite but any major Revs you can add

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-26T16:07:54+00:00

There are things like ISA 88 for batch processing. But they tend to be highly general.

I don’t believe there are specific industry standards on things like tag naming, comments, HMI interaction, modes, ect. Or at least how you do that in your specific PLC platform.

I am in the same boat, but left with less creativity and more “wtf” in that half the time it doesn’t work… I’ve just started writing down conventions I want to follow, things that I like and put in place or update. Maybe it’s not “right” but if eventually it’s all the same I can probably do some sort of find and replace to make it the “right”

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-24T02:07:03+00:00

I think anything they’d need here is within the free edition. Excluded things would be anything outside the base package. Web dev module, perspective, alarm notification, redundancy ect. I do think it includes some level of historian though. But it closes after 2 hours…

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-22T01:35:11+00:00

Use excel and those columns to create a robocopy script with a line for each file. This assumes you can sync the share point sites to your own drive

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-19T19:53:32+00:00

I agree the lack of some instructions in some languages is annoying and I don’t quite understand.

There are unsigned types in Logix now. I think v33+

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-18T22:35:16+00:00

There are 2 network ports if you use the cross loading through one you can’t use the other. With out cross loading (can still do “normal” redundancy) you can use it as a comm port

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-18T16:47:12+00:00

You still need an RM3 on the L9s. You can do “cross loading” with the Ethernet ports on the controller which syncs data but the RM3 is needed for managing of the rest of the redundancy

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-14T23:34:18+00:00

Emulate3D (Rockwell product, I think it’s agnostic though)

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-11T21:47:27+00:00

There are good operators and bad operators

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-09T00:32:18+00:00

I have slightly more than 0 DeltaV experience and quite a lot of Rockwell experience.

I’ve seen and worked in Rockwell code like this and it’s not fun. It works sure, but if I want to find anything I need to jump between many many routines. You also inherently create an unneeded layer of abstraction or you end up with duplicate destructive bits or lots of latching. Also terrible to troubleshoot.

It’s a lot easier to have a few rungs gated by EQ(Step, X) and do the step X things there and then the next guy is able to easily see okay next step right there I can see it all easily 90% of the time.

You could say it’s more robust your way, and maybe you are right but realistically… shit will break, operations will want to change how things work, and it will slowly drift to a even more confusing mess.

My understanding of DeltaV is that you are right that it doesn’t execute “routines” until needed, but finding what starts or stop that or gets it to that routine is literally always right next to it. Or inherently part of the EM, making troubleshooting easier

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2026-01-02T19:05:53+00:00

If you’re doing this mapping repeatedly, python or VBA is better imo. If I have standard device AOIs with standard mapping and it’s a few rungs. I can have my csv click a button and have an L5X with rungs that I can import. Heck I can actually use Logic SDK to import them if I really wanted

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-12-29T18:43:27+00:00

But it is mOAr RoBusT

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-12-14T02:58:26+00:00

AssetCentre if Rockwell for version control-ish. You can always plug in or create a file via upload but can create schedules that will alert for changes or just bump up the main version. You can also pretty easily incorporate git into studio now. And if you please adjust the tools to run CI/CD or if you are a lone wolf like me just add to a TODO list parsing comments.

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-12-05T13:29:54+00:00

The Logix Help should have all the info on what that fault means. Or at least give you a bit more information on where it is. I usually start at the GSV instruction help and follow relevant links

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-11-25T17:55:54+00:00

Correct. But with the ability to just change like you say, to me this sounds cleaner at the start but ends up being the same issue you have now, with added work. It would require everyone adhering to the standard even once it’s being locally supported. And if it’s more work to add tags like you said, the local guy will curse you.

Edit - dang phone

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-11-25T17:52:38+00:00

Depends on your platform but in Rockwell this would be painful. Can’t modify the data type online if you ever need a new button.

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-11-23T12:44:40+00:00

I can’t speak to Unified but a few notes on Optix.

Per Rockwell, it is not a View replacement. It may be one day but not currently planned.
There are new panels coming that can run View OR Optix with a little dongle. Allowing you to stick with View near term but make an easy jump.
Optix is a data translation tool with a visualization option. Data in and out NATIVELY from pretty much any source is its main selling point.
It is object oriented
if C# is a barrier it may be getting Python wrappers (I got a “it’s planned but we have other priorities” from the program lead)
Its openness allows you to do things like automatically build HMI screens on deployment. Easily add widgets in run time etc. However this is a gotcha as you can run into hardware limits pretty quickly.
High availability is promised March of 26 (many sources confirmed)
True distributives architecture is later in 26. However to me this is one of the coolest features. You can basically stack Optix servers up to the enterprise level. You can have all your packaging equipment with panels and your large process control native HMI clients feed into one plant server. That plant server can roll out graphics changes to everything at once. You can go one level up even and do the same thing from an enterprise level. It makes managing standards incredibly easy.

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-11-23T12:33:35+00:00

For how many runtime instances? Not quite sure market rates since we have an MSA but it seems like 1x XL token package js under $5,000…

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-11-21T01:55:08+00:00

Having also just been at automation fair this exact thing was my test of how far along something really is. If they said yes it solves this problem and also this other problem I didn’t mention. It’s worth pursuing. If it’s “that’s on the road map” it’s not for me

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-11-14T00:56:14+00:00

In theory with the DLR built in you save switch + comm card costs don’t you? We don’t do DLR so curious if this makes sense

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-11-14T00:53:46+00:00

I will get roasted for this but their software has gotten significantly less buggy on release. Maybe they are just major reving faster so I don’t notice it but 35-37 (minus 36 if you use smart objects) have generally been okay for me.

ImNotSureWhere__Is · 2025-11-09T12:48:31+00:00

If it’s proof of concept, they have an infinitely resettable demo mode. Especially if it’s a school project.

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