evaluating LabVIEW suitability for industrial machinery control

[RSalsgiver]

Ok.  I think you touched on part of my confusion with your last.  In yours you indicate that the cRIOs are essentially headless with no UI.  I was under the opposite impression.  I did some review on the site and found of course several models of the controllers. The 9012 - 9025 models of the controllers look to be headless.  At the same time the site indicates they are not recommended for new designs and refere to newer models like the 9035 which DO support UI and displays.  Presumably this is an evolution of the current hardware offerings, but it matches the initial impressions I had of the RIO line.  

It looks like it can / could be done either way, with there being pros, cons, and different costs as expected.  I can see some definite advantages to having the "core" PAC de-coupled from the UI device, particularly when it comes to keeping the primary machine operating PAC isolated from the end-user.

Am I understanding this right or missing more pieces?

Cheers,

Rob

[teritask]

I have been designing and building large test stands using Labview as the control software for 20 years. We started out with plug in boards, did a few with PXI real time systems, USB and now we use third party hardware with Kepware OPC server. This latest strategy is the best because we only have one ethernet cable running from the PC (or laptop) to the machine.

[crossrulz]

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@RSalsgiver wrote:

It looks like it can / could be done either way, with there being pros, cons, and different costs as expected.  I can see some definite advantages to having the "core" PAC de-coupled from the UI device, particularly when it comes to keeping the primary machine operating PAC isolated from the end-user.

Am I understanding this right or missing more pieces?

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Sounds like you have the general understanding.  But with that said, I still recommend not having the GUI enabled on any embedded controller.  They should deal with control, not updating a GUI.  Others will have a different opinion.

[RSalsgiver]

Thanks for the info.  So in your experience you would add a totally seprate device (a 2nd RIO or other controller) to provide the GUI detached from the machine operation controller?

Cheers,

Rob

[crossrulz]

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@RSalsgiver wrote:

Thanks for the info.  So in your experience you would add a totally seprate device (a 2nd RIO or other controller) to provide the GUI detached from the machine operation controller?

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I use PCs for GUI/HMI.  cRIOs should be doing nothing but control and local logging.