PLC Review: Circuit Breaker Industries
October 2003
PLCs, DCSs & Controllers
Vendor:
Circuit Breaker Industries
Product name and version:
Mitsubishi A series
General
Q: What industry (eg, mining, food and beverage, automotive etc) is the PLC being applied in?
A: Automotive industry.
Q: Describe the application briefly giving a description of any existing control systems, any previous PLC system that was in place etc. If relevant describe the switchover from the previous system.
A: This application is in a paint shop. There was a number of old Mitsubishi 'K' series PLCs that were used to control all the floor and overhead conveyors inside the paint shop. We decided that we needed to upgrade all of these PLCs due to the shortage of spares and interface modules. With the upgrade to the new 'A' series PLCs came the opportunity for us to link all the PLCs on a Melsecnet II network and Ethernet network. This allowed for the retrieval of data to the SCADA and Historian packages for report and alarm generation. The upgrade process took us approximately four hours per PLC panel. This included the conversion, networking and testing of the program.
Q: Who did the system installation/integration?
A:The members of the electronics department, during overtime and a shut down period, completed the upgrade in-house.
Q: Approximately how many man-hours did the installation/integration take?
A: In total there were approximately 50 PLCs upgraded and networked. This constituted a total of 200 man-hours for the installation.
Q: How is the after-sales support handled (eg, remote-dial-up, e-mail, Internet access etc)?
A: E-mail, telephone and local sales support.
System architecture
Q: How many I/O does the installation have? Analog? Digital? Maximum possible?
A: Each PLC averages an I/O count of 348 digitals and eight analogs. Therefore total system I/O consists of 17 800 points.
Q: What impressed you most about the architecture? Open standards, wide range of drives, the ability to upgrade, etc? Please elaborate.
A: The Mitsubishi PLCs have a wide range of interface modules available to connect it to any type of fieldbus system and other PLC networks. Top quality I/O servers for SCADA packages are readily available. The options are available for any upgrade that one would want to do.
Q: Does the PLC have a built-in user interface? Describe.
A: No.
Q: What sort of redundancy is built into the system?
A: The Mitsubishi Melsecnet system has a dual redundant forward and reverse loop networking system. This allows for any failures on the network due to cable breaks or network module faults. The system 'Q' PLC allows for extra CPUs to be installed in the same base rack.
Compatibility
Q: Do you run the PLC in conjunction with any third-party application software or hardware? Describe.
A: We run GX developer Version 7.0 as the programming interface. We have Profimap software, which is used to set up the Profinet fieldbus on the Mitsubishi PLCs. Then finally we run our SCADA package I/O servers for data acquisition.
Conclusion
Q: What impressed you the most about the system?
A: The reliability, ease of use and open system interfaces.
Q: What was the predominant feature (or features) that made you decide to employ this PLC, rather than another (ie, ease of use, support from the vendor, upgrade path, redundancy features etc)?
A: The program conversion tool with the upgrade path from 'K' to 'A' series. The ease of use and networking ability. The very competitive pricing of the Mitsubishi PLC range.
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