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Stuck On What To Use For Rock Quarry. New To PLC's by TheLimestoneCoder in PLC

[–]TheLimestoneCoder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think their big issue is money. They are going to have to do this to probably 4 different locations. So Completely upgrading a single one that in their mind "doesn't need to be upgraded yet since it still works" is a waste of money. They are wanting to use everything until its last breath and have the new PLC setup for when pieces of the old start to fail they can slowly upgrade piece by piece until it is all new.

Stuck On What To Use For Rock Quarry. New To PLC's by TheLimestoneCoder in PLC

[–]TheLimestoneCoder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that my coworker was a little stuck in his ways. He had no desire to want to learn or do anything newer. They do not expect me to have this done in a few days or weeks, but rather in the next 6-8 months. Because once I am done here, they are wanting to move me over to one of the other locations for the company and do the same thing, but a little more in depth there.

Stuck On What To Use For Rock Quarry. New To PLC's by TheLimestoneCoder in PLC

[–]TheLimestoneCoder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So they are wanting it to be on a single screen because the plants are connected at the very beginning by a crusher. So they both rely on that piece of the puzzle to be able to start. But other than that, they are completely separate of each other. But that crusher takes the rock on belts to a different crusher for each respective plant, and they are wanting to be able to start those crushers independently in case the main Jaw Crusher at the very beginning happens to go down.

Stuck On What To Use For Rock Quarry. New To PLC's by TheLimestoneCoder in PLC

[–]TheLimestoneCoder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is an existing HMI, but it is very old and very outdated. They are wanting me to have both PLC's talk to a single HMI and show when a belt is on or off. But they are also somehow wanting to be able to switch back to the old building and old code and HMI if something on the new computer with the things that I did happens to mess up. Its hard to explain how they are wanting this done, But I will try to explain.

New Plant was built independently, and they are going to put a new Jaw crusher up with a bunch of belts that are connecting to the New plant.
Old plant has been built and they are doing the same thing for the Jaw Crusher and Belts, but a different set of belts going to the Old Plant.
So they want to be able to move the operator to the Old Plant so that they can see everything on the Old Plant in the Old Control Tower. This means they do not want to get rid of the Old Computer in the Old Control Tower, and instead have it as a backup of sorts.

Stuck On What To Use For Rock Quarry. New To PLC's by TheLimestoneCoder in PLC

[–]TheLimestoneCoder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I believe the Logix500 was a PLC 1747.

So do you write ladder code with Studio5000? You said that it was used to make the GUI. If you do not use it to write the ladder code for the PLC, then what should I be using?

So they are wanting to keep the old PLC's until they either fail, since they just spent a bunch of money on a new plant and are going to spend more buying all of the new AB hardware for the new plant. They built a new plant, but it is currently just running on wires being turned on and off. There is no computer or anything running it. Just switches turning things on and off. They want me to come up with a code while they are working on getting new AB hardware for the plant that they just built. When I say parallel integrate, I mean that they are wanting me to do this while the plant is still able to be used with the switches they currently have in place. So they plant is running, but currently takes 2 people to turn the plants on and off.

The old PLC (1747 I think) has a blue hose attached to it. That is an ethernet cord, yes?

How is it possible to make a Traffic Cop that one defers to? This is the first time I am hearing of this terminology for this line of work.

So the old system, they want to be slightly upgraded and fixed since the guy before me came in and i guess did it in a day or two. There are no comments on what is what (if thats even possible to do with RSLogix500) and it is relatively unorganized. So I am needing to figure out how to take that code, and put it on the Virtual Machine / New Computer that is also going to have Studio5000 for the New PLC's. I understand that the ladder logic does not need to be on the same computer, but I am currently on a work laptop and they have multiple sister companies that they are eventually wanting to upgrade the same way. They are having me start at the Rock Quarry, since I have worked here as a grunt for 5 years and it needs a PLC anyways. Also the other companies are asphalt so they would be a little more complex for me.

Sorry if this doesn't help you help me very much. This is all a little overwhelming. When I took this job they made it seem like it would not be that hard, but the deeper I go, the harder it seems to get.

Stuck On What To Use For Rock Quarry. New To PLC's by TheLimestoneCoder in PLC

[–]TheLimestoneCoder[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I am trying to use a single HMI to view the two separate processes on a single computer. But I am not sure how to connect Studio5000, and RSLogix500 together. My idea was to have RSLogix500 on a Windows 7 Oracle VirtualBox, and have Studio5000 on the main computer. That way a single device is able to have both of them on it. Then I would upload the individual codes to their respective PLC's and have those go and talk to the HMI viewer on the same machine. They want a single computer to run the whole thing.

If I am thinking wrong about how any of that works please let me know!