What devices like PLC's and Fieldpoint have people used with Labview

[wcduffi]

I'm looking for a medium sized system that will "stand alone" like a PLC and be a little larger than Fieldpoint. I currently use Siemens PLC's and they are quite expensive. The system will have safety shutdown logic and must perform it's operation even when Labview crashes or the software host is lost.

[PdB]

Could you tell us the number of inputs/outputs D or A.
And is this for 1 system or are you using it in large quantities?
For large numbers, a tailor-made HW solution can be a surprisingly cheap alternative.
I know because my company is participating in the development of several of those applications.

[wcduffi]

A current project is 16AI,16AO,16DI,32DO which I am doing with fieldpoint as an experiment.I will have many many projects @ various sizes and want to standardize with my corporation. I would like to have an option for small (1-24 points), medium (25-50), and large (50+ to 100's). Been using Siemens PLC for all so far. Looking for "shutdown reliable" solutions as we have experienced with Siemens. All need to use Labview as front end.

[modicon]

http://www.automationdirect.com

Most cost-effective PLC on the market. Software cost is reasonable as well.

[Aaron_G]

What do you perceive as the size limitations that prevent FieldPoint from working in the system?

FieldPoint was designed with scalability in mind and can handle all of the channel counts that you describe in your comment. In more detail, a single FieldPoint bank consists of one network module and up to nine I/O modules which allows for up to 144 points (9 I/O modules * up to 16 channels per I/O module). On serial networks, you can have up to 25 network modules on the same serial port providing for up to 3600 I/O points per serial port. For ethernet modules, you can have an effectively unlimited number of network modules.

As for safety shutdown logic, all FieldPoint network modules support configurable power-up settings on a channel per channel configurable
basis as well as network communication watchdogs that can set any output (or groups of outputs) to pre-configured values should communication with the host is lost.

For the ability to run independantly of a computer, take a look at the FP-20XX series of LabVIEW Real-Time controllers that allow you to download LabVIEW code directly into the network module. You can use the RS-232 port on the FP-20XX to control a FP-1000 for scalability of I/O points, or you can use the DataSocket VI's to control FP-1600's providing scalability of I/O.

Regards,
Aaron

P.S. I freely admit that I am extremely biased towards FieldPoint, but I am also very interested in what peoples opinions are as towards it's weaknesses.

[mikeporter]

The biggest problem with FieldPoint is reliability. The system doesn't hold up to anything even remotely approching an industrial environment. Flakey connections on the backplane, modules popping off the rail, high failure rate of the modeles themselves--we saw it all. It got so bad that we finally had to trash the whole thing and go to Opto22--which by the way works very well.

Mike...