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On 07/30/2014 06:18 PM, Iosif Bancioiu wrote:
Maybe you know that there are 2 big companies building PLC and PLC
Platforms for industrial automation systems, Delta PLC and Siemens
PLC.
Well, there are others...like Beckhoff [1] and they support, as far as
remember, with ADS and/or a kernel driver the communication between a
linux host and their hardware. Only speaking about the communication
and not IDE.
Recently I've got an Delta DVP-10SX and they only support
Windows
for WPL Soft and ISP Soft, the platforms used to develop software
for their PLC. I tried to install and use it under Wine but I'm
unable to get COM ports to work inside those apps. (I'm able to see
in other apps but not inside those). I contacted them to ask about
Linux Support and they told me that they have requests from Russia
for porting ISP and WPL Soft to Linux.
The issue here is that PLCs are only interesting for a very small
target audience, the industrial automation guys. It's possible to get
hands on this kind of hardware but it's not a cheap endeavor
(referring to Siemens here). I think that a Soft-PLC can not be easily
ported to another platform because their are special requirements
(protocols, real-time, etc.) which are are to fulfill.
They asked me to provide them some statistics about Linux Systems
numbers in Industrial use because they are open for this, they take
in consideration to support Linux.
If there is a linux tool that customers can use to program their PLC,
they will probably start using linux. My experience is that they still
will use the windows version because all other tools (speaking about
CAD, CAE, et al) are not available for other platforms that windows.
I would like if you can do some research in your country regarding
this.
It's very unlikely that you can get accurate data without investing a
lot of time.
Is time for Linux to be supported by one of the bigest PLC
builders.
IMHO, better have a well-maintained implementation on one platform
than lousy one on several.
Kind regards,
Fabian
[1]
http://www.beckhoff.com
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