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Posted to dev@plc4x.apache.org by Christofer Dutz <ch...@c-ware.de> on 2018/11/27 17:47:07 UTC

SPS IPC Drives summary

Hi all,

today I had my second visit at the SPS IPC Drives in Nürnberg. It’s one of the world’s biggest (if not even THE biggest industry fair on everything in industrial automation).
Last year people treated me with sort of an attitude of being someone with really strange point of view. This was with the first line of PLC4X being about 1-2 months old.
This year people (even sales guys) seem to have gotten used to the industry. I wouldn’t say that’s our work, but at least things seem to be changing.

Also I visited all the big PLC vendors for my annual “Who’s an Ass and who’s not” ranking ;-) Last year most of the companies in business for over 50 years were on the red side of the list.

This year, the worst I got was a: “But we don’t want you to do that” from Rockwell.

On the Opposite side, I have to mention: Beckhoff and Phoenix Contact. These were extremely kind and seem to have adopted and embraced the idea of Open-Source.

The other ones that were “just nice to me” were:

  *   Festo
  *   Rexroth
  *   Codesys
  *   ABB
  *   Schneider Electric

Also I had a talk with one of the Profinet guys.
The takeaway from that was, that we don’t need to become a member in order to be allowed to implement a driver. We can simply purchase the Specs.
If we want to actively communicate (Active-Mode Driver) we need a vendor-id, but we could get that for free too. I was asked to contact the guy I talked with after the fair and he would send me all needed information. The only thing we are not allowed to do without a membership is use the ProfiNet Logo … guess I can live with that.

So guess there’s nothing preventing us from implementing a ProfiNet driver. :-)

Also did I do a quick summary of which protocols we would need to talk to the different types of PLCs:

  *   Rockwell: Ethernet/IP
  *   Phoenix Contact: Ethernet/IP, Modbus-TCP, ProfiNet
  *   Festo: Ethernet/IP, Modbus-TCP, ProfiNet
  *   Pilz: Modbus-TCP
  *   Beckhoff: ADS. OPC-UA
  *   Rexroth: OCI (MLPI for PLCs, EAL for Drives)
  *   Codesys: Codesys (Profinet, OPC-UA, Modbus, via plugins)
  *   ABB: Codesys, Profinet, Modbus-TCP
  *   Schneider Electric: Modbus-TCP (simple PLCs), EtherNet/IP (Controll Systems)

So it seems implementing ProfiNet, Codesys and OPC-UA would increase the coverage even more.

So far my summary …

Chris

AW: SPS IPC Drives summary

Posted by Tim Mitsch <t....@pragmaticindustries.de>.
Hey Chris,

Like Julian I also want to thank you for the interesting report on what happend on SPS IPC Drives.
I think we are on a good way and all that motivates me and all the other co-workers within PLC4X spent more time for increasing the features for PLC4X.
Furthermore i think more or less all manufactures (earlier or later) will realize that there will be no way beside open-source especially as they what to sell their Hardware and programming SW predomaninatly.

We would have had nothing yet when you did not start your work on PLC4X ... thank you so much for that and all your work - every good idea needs some clever head to push i forward!

So lets move on and let Toddy conquer the (industrial and since Code.Retreat also consumer) world.

Best
Tim 


Am 28.11.18, 03:14 schrieb "Julian Feinauer" <j....@pragmaticminds.de>:

    Hi Chris,
    
    thank you for that nice report (I won't make it to Nürnberg this year).
    It is great to hear that, also the "big players" seem to start to shift their points of view (well, you cant turn around an aircraft carrier in one day). 
    We see that movement already with many of our small and medium-sized clients but I didn't expect it to happen that "fast" in this area (even expensive PLCs have like 4MB RAM... and yes, I'm talking about MEGA bytes).
    Did you get any "deeper" interest from anybody in the sense of "hey of course we can hack some days together with you and implement our protocol"?
    
    And I agree that this is perhaps (not yet) a result of our work as the PLC4X community but I would definitely say that this is, at least to a certain amount a result of YOUR work. Of your vision, of all your visits to fairs, talks, presentations. This is my personal opinion but I'm pretty sure there are more people here on the list thinking the same way.
    
    So let's keep going on rocking this shit... there's a whole industry waiting to be evangelized to the OSS side of things.
    
    Julian
    
    
    Am 27.11.18, 18:47 schrieb "Christofer Dutz" <ch...@c-ware.de>:
    
        Hi all,
        
        today I had my second visit at the SPS IPC Drives in Nürnberg. It’s one of the world’s biggest (if not even THE biggest industry fair on everything in industrial automation).
        Last year people treated me with sort of an attitude of being someone with really strange point of view. This was with the first line of PLC4X being about 1-2 months old.
        This year people (even sales guys) seem to have gotten used to the industry. I wouldn’t say that’s our work, but at least things seem to be changing.
        
        Also I visited all the big PLC vendors for my annual “Who’s an Ass and who’s not” ranking ;-) Last year most of the companies in business for over 50 years were on the red side of the list.
        
        This year, the worst I got was a: “But we don’t want you to do that” from Rockwell.
        
        On the Opposite side, I have to mention: Beckhoff and Phoenix Contact. These were extremely kind and seem to have adopted and embraced the idea of Open-Source.
        
        The other ones that were “just nice to me” were:
        
          *   Festo
          *   Rexroth
          *   Codesys
          *   ABB
          *   Schneider Electric
        
        Also I had a talk with one of the Profinet guys.
        The takeaway from that was, that we don’t need to become a member in order to be allowed to implement a driver. We can simply purchase the Specs.
        If we want to actively communicate (Active-Mode Driver) we need a vendor-id, but we could get that for free too. I was asked to contact the guy I talked with after the fair and he would send me all needed information. The only thing we are not allowed to do without a membership is use the ProfiNet Logo … guess I can live with that.
        
        So guess there’s nothing preventing us from implementing a ProfiNet driver. :-)
        
        Also did I do a quick summary of which protocols we would need to talk to the different types of PLCs:
        
          *   Rockwell: Ethernet/IP
          *   Phoenix Contact: Ethernet/IP, Modbus-TCP, ProfiNet
          *   Festo: Ethernet/IP, Modbus-TCP, ProfiNet
          *   Pilz: Modbus-TCP
          *   Beckhoff: ADS. OPC-UA
          *   Rexroth: OCI (MLPI for PLCs, EAL for Drives)
          *   Codesys: Codesys (Profinet, OPC-UA, Modbus, via plugins)
          *   ABB: Codesys, Profinet, Modbus-TCP
          *   Schneider Electric: Modbus-TCP (simple PLCs), EtherNet/IP (Controll Systems)
        
        So it seems implementing ProfiNet, Codesys and OPC-UA would increase the coverage even more.
        
        So far my summary …
        
        Chris

Re: SPS IPC Drives summary

Posted by Julian Feinauer <j....@pragmaticminds.de>.
Hi Chris,

thank you for that nice report (I won't make it to Nürnberg this year).
It is great to hear that, also the "big players" seem to start to shift their points of view (well, you cant turn around an aircraft carrier in one day). 
We see that movement already with many of our small and medium-sized clients but I didn't expect it to happen that "fast" in this area (even expensive PLCs have like 4MB RAM... and yes, I'm talking about MEGA bytes).
Did you get any "deeper" interest from anybody in the sense of "hey of course we can hack some days together with you and implement our protocol"?

And I agree that this is perhaps (not yet) a result of our work as the PLC4X community but I would definitely say that this is, at least to a certain amount a result of YOUR work. Of your vision, of all your visits to fairs, talks, presentations. This is my personal opinion but I'm pretty sure there are more people here on the list thinking the same way.

So let's keep going on rocking this shit... there's a whole industry waiting to be evangelized to the OSS side of things.

Julian


Am 27.11.18, 18:47 schrieb "Christofer Dutz" <ch...@c-ware.de>:

    Hi all,
    
    today I had my second visit at the SPS IPC Drives in Nürnberg. It’s one of the world’s biggest (if not even THE biggest industry fair on everything in industrial automation).
    Last year people treated me with sort of an attitude of being someone with really strange point of view. This was with the first line of PLC4X being about 1-2 months old.
    This year people (even sales guys) seem to have gotten used to the industry. I wouldn’t say that’s our work, but at least things seem to be changing.
    
    Also I visited all the big PLC vendors for my annual “Who’s an Ass and who’s not” ranking ;-) Last year most of the companies in business for over 50 years were on the red side of the list.
    
    This year, the worst I got was a: “But we don’t want you to do that” from Rockwell.
    
    On the Opposite side, I have to mention: Beckhoff and Phoenix Contact. These were extremely kind and seem to have adopted and embraced the idea of Open-Source.
    
    The other ones that were “just nice to me” were:
    
      *   Festo
      *   Rexroth
      *   Codesys
      *   ABB
      *   Schneider Electric
    
    Also I had a talk with one of the Profinet guys.
    The takeaway from that was, that we don’t need to become a member in order to be allowed to implement a driver. We can simply purchase the Specs.
    If we want to actively communicate (Active-Mode Driver) we need a vendor-id, but we could get that for free too. I was asked to contact the guy I talked with after the fair and he would send me all needed information. The only thing we are not allowed to do without a membership is use the ProfiNet Logo … guess I can live with that.
    
    So guess there’s nothing preventing us from implementing a ProfiNet driver. :-)
    
    Also did I do a quick summary of which protocols we would need to talk to the different types of PLCs:
    
      *   Rockwell: Ethernet/IP
      *   Phoenix Contact: Ethernet/IP, Modbus-TCP, ProfiNet
      *   Festo: Ethernet/IP, Modbus-TCP, ProfiNet
      *   Pilz: Modbus-TCP
      *   Beckhoff: ADS. OPC-UA
      *   Rexroth: OCI (MLPI for PLCs, EAL for Drives)
      *   Codesys: Codesys (Profinet, OPC-UA, Modbus, via plugins)
      *   ABB: Codesys, Profinet, Modbus-TCP
      *   Schneider Electric: Modbus-TCP (simple PLCs), EtherNet/IP (Controll Systems)
    
    So it seems implementing ProfiNet, Codesys and OPC-UA would increase the coverage even more.
    
    So far my summary …
    
    Chris