An old piece of equipment had an old and glitchy controller and a primitive monochrome HMI with very limited connectivity.
The initial decision was to use some sort of modern PLC and HMI package for the controls upgrade however anything that is on a market is expensive and requires a proprietary programming software which is also expensive.
I gave it a try and first experimented with USB-to-serial RS422 communication cable to connect tiny NUC PC ($125) with the machine I/O and motor controllers, then we ordered 10" Lilliput touch screen ($275) which proved to be an excellent choice. Then it was just imagination and creativity developing control software using Visual Studio .NET environment where the sky is the limit. It took some minor frustration figuring out how to get around serial communication limitations for data exchange, however it all worked out at the end.
21 ноя 2020
